Cadbury India: Bonding over biscuits

Acouple of months back, confectionery maker Cadbury India entered the Rs 12,000 crore biscuit market with the launch of Oreo sandwich cookies from the global portfolio of its parent Kraft Foods. Oreo is the second product after orange drink Tang from the Kraft stable available in India.

Cadbury sees great potential in biscuits, the fastest growing processed food segment in India. According to a Nielsen study, the category grew at 17 per cent in 2010; but the per capita consumption remains low, indicating a big opportunity to grow.

Post launch Oreo’s global ‘Twist, Lick, Dunk’ (TLD) communication broke across media — including television, print, radio, below-the-line and digital. “Our television campaign aims to highlight the bonding moments between a father and child, as they indulge in child-like delight while eating an Oreo and performing the ‘Twist Lick Dunk’ routine,” says Chandramouli Venkatesan, director, snacking & strategy, Cadbury India.

Oreo has used the TLD proposition in its communication in over 107 markets for nearly a hundred years. Says Venkatesan, “We want our brand to encourage fathers and mothers to spend quality time with their children.” Oreo’s maiden television campaign in India broke during the ICC World Cup 2011 to grab maximum eyeballs.

Oreo also had a hard-to-miss outdoor campaign where the Oreo biscuit packets were mounted on bus shelters. A mobile van also carried the TLD communication forward; there was a large fabricated glass of milk on a van and the biscuit could be seen moving up and down as though it was being dipped into the glass of milk.

Oreo started the second part of its campaign in India recently by introducing the concept of the Oreo Togetherness Bus. Starting from New Delhi on June 8, 2011, the blue Oreo bus travelled across eight other cities — Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mysore. People got to know of the arrival of the Oreo bus in their respective cities through hoardings, ads in the city supplements of newspapers and through FM radio.

“The bus provided parents with a platform to bond with their children and encouraged them to spend more time with their kids. This initiative by Oreo germinated from a survey conducted by Cadbury, Oreo Togetherness Quotient, which showed that parents today crave for a little more time with their children, away from their hectic work schedules. Oreo decided to bridge the gap with its Oreo bus. Inside the bus, parents and their children were encouraged to participate in activities based on Oreo’s TLD proposition. Parents were also encouraged to take the Oreo Pledge — a promise to spend more time with their children.

Interface Communications is handling the mass media and digital aspects of the campaign, and Candid Marketing is the supporting the brand’s on-ground initiatives.