Cadbury marks birthday with 200 years of history in 60 seconds

Cadbury has remade its “Mum’s birthday” ad as part of a campaign to celebrate its 200th anniversary.

 

Campaign film “Birthday” by VCCP recreates its 2018 ad, which was the first to be made by the agency after it won the creative account in 2017, but two centuries of change take place during the 60-second spot.

 

VCCP’s content creation studio Girl&Bear and director Fréderic Planchon, who directed the original ad, worked together using body doubles and post-production techniques to recreate the tender story of a girl buying chocolate for her mother.

 

Mum is seen rushing out of work in Georgian England and catching a horse-drawn bus to pick up her daughter from school, but the setting has moved forward to Victorian times, depicted through changing clothes, buildings and vehicles.

 

By the time the girl is going into the shop, while mum is in a phone box, we’ve entered the early 20th century. Decades whizz past as she counts out payment in buttons and toys, before getting her unicorn back as change.

 

The wider campaign, “Yours for 200 years”, includes out of home and social featuring pictures of people enjoying Cadbury products, which were submitted by members of the public in a competition.

 

 

Media planning and buying is being handled by Publicis Media.

 

Elise Burditt, senior marketing director at Cadbury, said: “This is a very special moment for us. It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to celebrate a 200th anniversary. But for us this is so much more than that – it’s celebrating 200 years of being part of the lives of the British public and recognising that we wouldn’t be here today without them. We want to demonstrate that the values on which Cadbury was founded in Birmingham 200 years ago still ring true today.”

 

A set of OOH ads evoke the artwork of historic campaigns with branding and packaging from different eras.

 

And a limited edition range of seven Cadbury Dairy Milk bars is being released featuring classic designs.

 

Chris Birch and Jonny Parker, executive creative directors at VCCP London, said: “Crikey. Two hundred years old. That only happens when you have the relationship with the British public that Cadbury has. This work celebrates every Christmas morning Selection Box, every school trouser pocket Curly Wurly, every drippy 99 Flake, every Dairy Milk on the sofa and everyone in Britain who’s gleefully munched them since 1824. Happy birthday Cadbury."