Diwali is the festival of lights. But last year the pandemic adversely affected the economy, dampening the festivities.

The brief was to create a campaign which promotes the brand's message of generosity during the festival of Diwali.

The objective was to create a campaign that showcased generosity in action.

Diwali is the festival of lights. But last year the pandemic adversely affected the economy, dampening the festivities. Everyone needed a little help to get back on their feet, especially the small local stores. So we launched #NotJustACadburyAd where we didn’t just advertise for ourselves but thousands of small businesses. We mapped local stores across India through their pin codes and geo-targeted the customised ads promoting these stores locally. The AI created thousands of versions of the same ad resulting in the first ever hyper-personalised ad. This prompted every viewer watching the ad to support their local stores, thus making everyone’s Diwali happier and sweeter.

As the pandemic had hit urban metros more strongly than the rural parts of India, we focused on targeting urban Indian families in the top metros. Diwali being India's biggest festival is celebrated by all members of the family together, so we were targeting consumers across age groups with our video which showed the stores around their location.

The second challenge was the media deployment and where to reach our consumers. As the idea was location and tech specific the platforms of Facebook & YouTube helped drive this hyper local data driven campaign to a large set of audience.

The small stores in the ad changed based on where the ad was being viewed. A person viewing the ad in Pune would be guided to small stores in Pune, in their vicinity. Similarly, for a person in Mumbai or Delhi.

For Diwali 2020, Cadbury India leveraged tech and AI to launch India’s first ever hyperlocal and hyper-personalised ad which advertised not just for itself but also for over 1800+ small shops and businesses with no digital presence.

In a difficult year like 2020, Cadbury wanted to inspire people to do what’s right by reminding them to support their local retailers. The many small stores and businesses whose functionality had crippled under the Covid related lockdowns. This was going to hit hard even more so during Diwali, a festive opportunity of usually high business.

Through this campaign, Cadbury aimed to share the festive warmth with the small businesses that were hit the most due to the pandemic.

By customising the Cadbury Diwali ad to feature the names of the stores present in and around the location of the viewer of the ad. Thus a person residing in some part of Delhi, would see the names of the stores within a 2km radius around their vicinity. Likewise for a person residing in Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore or Kolkata would see the shops in and around their location.

This was made possible by geo-targeting over 260+ pin codes, making a bank of all the stores located in these pin-codes and using an algorithm that captured the nearby jeweller, optician, apparel store, a general store and featured them in the ad alongside the local store from where you could pick a box of Cadbury as well.

The video ran 20 days prior to the festival of Diwali in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Lucknow, jaipur, Ahemdabad and Chandigarh and reminding everyone to support their local stores during the hard times.

The ad puts a spotlight on generosity with a thought-provoking ending: ‘When all of us support our local stores, all of us can have a Happy Diwali’.

BUSINESS

Generated 1.2x the targeted business numbers.

IMPRESSIONS

Received over 35 million impressions, with 9.4 million video views.

RECALL

An astounding 14.4% uplift in AdRecall

CONSIDERATION

5.9% uplift in consideration

VTR - View Through Rate Social - 20% (benchmark 8%)

Planned Views 38,52,000 - Delivered 42,77,964, Completed Views - 3,31,685

VTR - View Through Rate Video - 37% (benchmark 35%)