Mumbrella360: Small acts of kindness have a sweet return for Cadbury

They’re some of the most stirring advertisements on television. An old shopkeeper accepts a few small trinkets from a child in exchange for a chocolate for her mother. A teenage girl, tear-stained on the bus, is offered a square of chocolate from a kind kid who takes pity on her. A dad visits her daughter at a servo and buys her a bar of chocolate to help her through the shift.

The Cadbury ‘there’s a glass and a half in everyone’ campaign is poignant and affecting, a demonstration of the power of small acts of kindness. And the power of the campaign has transcended the television to give Cadbury a well-needed shot in the arm, after a period where global sales slowed, and brand penetration declined. 

Ben Wicks – VP Confectionery for Mondelēz Europe and former Global Director of Cadbury – started working on Cadbury in 2011, and was tasked with following the iconic Cadbury Gorilla campaign.