Cadbury quickens ‘dynamic’ experiential drive with Waterloo St takeover

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiZCW_lWW0M

The sweet maker has turned the high-definition screen into a motion-capture style game that rewards players for interacting with the displayed objects. Players are allocated one of several virtual objects that they can head, kick and flick to burst and win bars of Wispa and Dairy Milk.

Cadbury has used a combination of augmented reality technologies, developed by Elvis and Grand Visual, to trick people into believing they are actually interacting with the screen. However, carefully concealed members of the Cadbury team are actually moving the objects in-synch with people’s movements.

Tweets from fans using the #freethejoy hashtag are displayed in real-time alongside the game. Meanwhile, YouTube (see above) and Vine videos are being seeded to drum up awareness, while geo-located posts are targeting Facebook fans.

The two-day stunt, produced by GolinHarris and PrettyGreen, ends this evening (3 June) and has already attracted over 160,000 consumers. It was planned and booked by JCDecaux by PhD.

It is the biggest in a string of planned events created to generate consumer footfall in excess of 630,000 to nearby shops this summer. Cadbury has shifted more of its marketing budget to outdoor media to support the plan and also make its recently revamped “joy” positioning more tangible to fans.

The strategy has already led to the opening of the two-day “Cadbury Joy Boutique” in Convent Garden. Cadbury tied with celebrity Myleene Klass to unveil the shop last week, when it showcased chocolate-crafted footwear by food artist Prudence Staite. Visitors were able to sample various products and tweet a picture of their favourite shoe in store to win a pair themselves.  

The flurry of activity forms part of a £4m marketing drive to promote the “Win your joy in chocolate” on-pack promotion. Cadbury hopes to top the success of its “Unwrap Gold” effort last year, which it claims generated incremental sales of £9m.