In its quest for a 360-degree all-encompassing marketing campaign, Cadbury Australia has made no bones about its new marketing strategy - squarely focusing on the benefits of sponsorship.
Hot on the heels of launching its sponsor partnership with The Voice, which also couples up with a point of sale partnership with Woolworths, we caught up with manager marketing, head of strategic partnerships and events at Cadbury, Lauren Fildes
Having just announced it's major new multichannel campaign, Cadbury's biggest in recent years, Fildes said this forms one of Cadbury's biggest moves into the live music and entertainment space.
She said sponsorship as a marketing “pillar” is a key strategy for them in Australia and they have a “sponsorship plan” they are setting up in relation to sponsorships up until 2018.
She said while it always have it's in-store promotions and big brand campaigns on the go, after much research, the brand felt sponsorship was one of the best ways it had to dig in to in order to reach its target audience – mainly being families/mums and kids.
“This is a strategy for Australia. We are forging the path from an Australian perspective through sponsorships,” Fildes said.
“Because we have done some great research to really understand what are core consumers are doing, what they are watching and what their interests are, we wanted to become more relevant to them and we saw this as a great way to do that - sponsorship is one way to talk to our consumers in a different manner that is relevant to them.
“The Voice is centred inherently in music it and when we were looking at developing our sponsorship strategy, music, entertainment and movies were core to our lovers of Cadbury.”
She said this is an ”added marketing strategy” and that it does not detract from any of its other marketing plans, and it has not withdrawn cash from any other ad strategies.
“To make it truly work, sponsorship needs to be a 360 tick-off that consumers will not only remember, but will remember for the right reasons,” she said.
Fildes said the sponsorship been in the works for a while and that the time of year the sponsorship was activated was important – given it's now winter - so more Aussies are inside on the couch chowing down chocolate.
She also said Cadbury could look to “unlock major sporting events” with sponsorship deals down the line.
Cadbury, which has a 'sponsorship' with The Voice and a 'partnership' with Jessie J, created a set of eight ads. Check them out below.
Cadbury and The Voice 1. What flavour would I pick?
Cadbury and The Voice 2. Crunchie you honey
Cadbury and The Voice 3. Flavour battle
Cadbury and The Voice 4. Flavour warm up
Cadbury and The Voice 5. Peppermint, peppermint
Cadbury and The Voice 6. Fruit & Nut the star
Cadbury and The Voice 7. Love the Fruit & Nut:
Cadbury and The Voice 8. Cadbury Dairy Milk the true super star
Campaign credits:
Mondelēz International: Carla Filia, Head of Marketing – Cadbury, Bars & Bitesize
Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director: Jon Burden
Saatchi & Saatchi Business Director: Nick Cook
Saatchi & Saatchi Agency Producer: Michael Demosthenous
Production Company: Exit Films
Director: Stuart Bowen
Producer: Jodi Matterson
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