Cadbury Coins were off shelves for a decade. Petitions had started and people took to Twitter to complain. Our brief was to drive fame for their return, but our budget was limited and it was one of the most saturated periods in the advertising calendar.

We uncovered why people had been so up in arms over their discontinuation: because Coins = Christmas, and for many they’re part of the festive ritual. So to make use of a limited budget, we enlisted the general public (Christmas megafans) as our advertising. We recruited the most festive houses in the UK, and turned their decorations into LITERAL Cadbury Coins advertising.

Target audience: Britain’s Christmas lovers - a broad group, across the nation, who love signs of Christmas enthusiasm.

Media planning and approach: drive cut-through by thinking of OOH in a completely new way - as “Outside Of Home sites”. An entirely different and cost-effective approach to outdoor, that takes advantage of a growing UK trend of people lighting their houses - and is completely in keeping with the positive seasonal associations of Cadbury Coins themselves.

Ahead of December, festive houses in the UK added one more custom-made light to their displays, turning their homes into outside-of-homes ads, with a payment sweetened by Cadbury Coins. We then recorded reactions to the custom-made lights, creating engaging social videos that were shared beyond the streets.

Given the limited budget available, it was crucial this activity had cut-through and led to commercial success for the relaunch of Cadbury Coins in the UK.

Sure enough, Cadbury Coins became the No.1 NPD (New Product Development) of the season, selling out of all 1.4 million units, achieving 10.8% market share of all Christmas coins in the UK market.