Sir Martin Sorrell, head of advertisers WPP, was discussing in an article how advertising revenue at his company had slumped.
He put this down to the increasing popularity of social networking websites. “Social networking is really recommendation between people about the things they are interested in and they like… this has stimulated people’s attention,” he said. Social networkers, he added, were more cynical and had a particular aversion to traditional advertising, whereas peer-to-peer recommendation was much more powerful.
Perhaps this explains the Cadbury gorilla advert. Talkingretail.com says: “The new ad will engage consumers on a personal level, reminding them exactly why Cadbury Dairy Milk is Britain’s favourite chocolate brand.”
It’s certainly engaging, yet it’s hard to spot any connections at all to the product or brand or to us as consumers. But search for it on YouTube and things start to make more sense. Its quirkiness and originality are perfect for that medium and audience, with hundreds of spoof remakes and edited versions – the Gorilla drumming along to the likes of Metallica and 50 Cent – all flying about and being shared.
What the ad does for sales of Dairy Milk remains to be seen but Cadbury has certainly been quite canny: tapping into an increasingly hard-to-reach audience who not only love the ad, but are also willing to do the company’s PR for them too.
Monkey business
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Sir Martin Sorrell, head of advertisers WPP, was discussing in an article how advertising revenue at his company had slumped.
He put this down to the increasing popularity of social networking websites. “Social networking is really recommendation between people about the things they are interested in and they like… this has stimulated people’s attention,” he said. Social networkers, he added, were more cynical and had a particular aversion to traditional advertising, whereas peer-to-peer recommendation was much more powerful.
Perhaps this explains the Cadbury gorilla advert. Talkingretail.com says: “The new ad will engage consumers on a personal level, reminding them exactly why Cadbury Dairy Milk is Britain’s favourite chocolate brand.”
It’s certainly engaging, yet it’s hard to spot any connections at all to the product or brand or to us as consumers. But search for it on YouTube and things start to make more sense. Its quirkiness and originality are perfect for that medium and audience, with hundreds of spoof remakes and edited versions – the Gorilla drumming along to the likes of Metallica and 50 Cent – all flying about and being shared.
What the ad does for sales of Dairy Milk remains to be seen but Cadbury has certainly been quite canny: tapping into an increasingly hard-to-reach audience who not only love the ad, but are also willing to do the company’s PR for them too.
Ant put this here at 09:00am
Permalink
Comments
Of course the only real down side is a resurgent interest in the Phil Collins back catalogue.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 09:55am