Cadbury has a long-standing partnership with the Royal Children's Hospital (Melbourne, Australia) for the annual Good Friday Appeal which has demonstrated time and time again the pure joy and excitement Easter brings to children, no matter what they might be going through.

As a brand, Cadbury’s strategic direction is centred around the concept of generosity, with the belief that there is ‘a glass and a half in everyone’.

In response to their Easter brief, we presented the idea for Cadbury to change the game and focus on including people with vision impairment in the ritual of an Easter egg hunt, some for the first time ever. Acknowledging that ‘inclusivity’ is not one size fits all, this was a first step to cater to a more accessible Easter for all families.

The objective was to drive the ritual of the hunt, and celebrate the brand's connection with the Royal Children’s Hospital.

The Easter Egg Hunt is the most magical part of the Easter holidays. But with more than half of Australians living with a long-term visual impairment*, not everyone can join in the fun.

To invite more people into the hunt, we proposed “An Accessible Easter”. With advocates from the blind community, we developed an inclusive and interactive Easter Egg designed to guide people of all vision abilities.

Like a tech-enabled game of hot-and-cold, the egg emitted an audio signal as the hunter (equipped with a wearable beacon) approached it. Once found, picked up and shaken, a different sound is played to celebrate and conclude the search.

With the accessible eggs hidden away in Melbourne’s Royal Park, we invited groups of eager hunters to come and find them. For some, it was the first time they had ever experienced the magic of an Easter Egg Hunt.

*Latest National Health Survey, ABS.

INSIGHT: The Easter Egg Hunt is the most magical part of the Easter holidays - but with more than half of Australians living with a long-term visual impairment*, not everyone can join in the fun.

KEY MESSAGE: Bringing inclusivity to the forefront, Cadbury is changing the game by including kids with vision impairment in the Easter hunt experience in 2023.

TARGET AUDIENCE: Families with kids of all ages, from start-ups to older couples with grandkids, Easter can be enjoyed by everyone. For our accessible Easter egg hunt, the audience was families and individuals with lived vision impairments.

ASSETS: We distributed a press release, imagery, and VNR (video news release) to online, print and TV networks, and invited a select few to attend the event themselves and capture footage. To spread more joy, media packs filled with chocolate, a press release, and comp card were distributed to media and influencers.

We’re increasingly seeing technology being used to promote inclusivity, with advancements traditionally seen in fields from social media and video games to hygiene products. Accessible technology is not as common within the food and beverage category.

In collaboration with a creative technology developer, we reimagined what an Easter egg (and hunt) should look and feel like by creating a game that allowed participants with vision-impairment to locate hidden eggs.

Participants wore a beacon that could communicate their location with the eggs. As they approached the egg, a sound emitted indicating their proximity. Once the egg is found and shaken, a celebratory sound was triggered, signalling the end of the hunt.

The technology used included a specialty 3D-printed outer shell to hold the sensors, a beacon for proximity, a speaker system for audio feedback and gyroscopes to detect when the egg is shaken.

To optimise the user experience, several iterations of the egg were qualitatively tested with focus groups of participants with vision impairments. Sounds were carefully created based on feedback from the focus group, and braille language was embedded in the final design. The idea and final outputs were co-designed in partnership with an advocacy group representing the targeted communities.

A total of 59 media hits were achieved specific to An Accessible Easter. This included coverage on the three mainstream TV news channels (Ch7, Ch9 and Ch10) in metro and regional areas, online news, tech and trade media demonstrating the strength of the story and media appeal.

The quality of all coverage was strong with 100% positive sentiment and a minimum of two key messages in all coverage.

The target audience was reached by the nature of the community involved, and the widespread media coverage across the three mainstream broadcast news bulletins.

In terms of business outcomes:

Background info:

In 2022, the total Easter Seasonal Chocolate sales value was $264m (retail sales value). Of this, MDLZ (Cadbury) secured 62% market share.

2023 results:

Cadbury gained 0.5 percentage points of market share vs 2022. With the brand already holding 62% market share, this is a huge increase.

Cadbury achieved 91% sell-through. Please note, this information cannot be shared publicly.