Diwali contributes to almost 40% of annual sales for Cadbury Celebrations. However, sweet gifting during Diwali is everybody's business (from chocolates to traditional sweets and even salty snacks) and not just Cadbury’s. If we wanted consumers to have a higher likelihood of choosing Celebrations, we need to do something special.

This clutter also exists in media, where most brands opt to focus on the product and pricing.

In the past few years, Cadbury Celebrations consistently stood out from this clutter by turning our marketing into a generosity platform, staying true to the brand’s core purpose. In previous years, we did this by enabling small brick-and-mortar store owners. The challenge in 2023 was to not just evoke empathy and inspire action, but also to create a full-fledged omnichannel ecosystem that enabled people to discover and promote local businesses, thereby gifting a sweet Diwali to them.

Indian homemakers, boosted by digital commerce, launched businesses during the pandemic. Family support marked a cultural shift, given all bricks-and-mortar businesses are passed down to sons, and women are encouraged to focus on looking after the family.

This was also the first time where women were economically contributing to the families that struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic. India now saw women from all strata of society start businesses that met consumer needs in various areas of shopping, but these relied primarily on word of mouth and recommendations for visibility.

But while these women tasted success in their immediate circles, their discoverability was limited to their environment due to limited digital marketing knowledge and resources.

Based on this insight, and coupled with Cadbury Celebrations' Generosity platform, we aimed to enable discoverability for these 'Homepreneurs' with much-needed visibility and commerce tools that they deserved.

In the festival of lights, Cadbury Celebrations continued its tradition of supporting communities, with a focus this year on enabling discoverability for homepreneurs during Diwali. Fuelled by internet access and familial support, these skilled individuals thrived within their circles. However, their biggest hurdle remained visibility outside their circle of friends and families and to stand out vs formidable large brands.

Our media strategy for #ThisAdisMyStore campaign was designed to address this challenge. Through a targeted media approach, we spotlighted homepreneurs in local communities, on social media and on the ground – dedicating Cadbury Celebrations’ own media spaces during the peak season to promote them. This strategy not only personified and amplified our Generosity platform but elevated it to unprecedented heights, enhancing Diwali business opportunities for these talented homepreneurs. Simply put, this Diwali season we illuminated the path for homepreneurs to shine bright instead of keeping our product at the forefront.

#Thisadismystore amplified the core message across a campaign structure that included five distinct phases:

Discovery focused on driving awareness for the core campaign asset (a video), and encouraged viewers to visit the ecommerce microsite to register themselves or another Homepreneur. TV, OOH, Social Video, Print and YouTube Shorts were all leveraged, in addition to a sponsorship on Kaun Banega Crorepati – a top-rated Indian TV show that featured a Homepreneur. Print included a QR-code to enable a microsite linkout.

Consideration aimed to deliver video engagement on personal homepreneur stories through partner-led traffic. A search campaign was crafted around the homepreneurs’ top product categories to generate focused traffic.

Purchase leveraged data to personalize Amazon ads, enticing viewers to buy.

Experience optimized the microsite for a seamless journey, co-hosted by Jio and PayTM to attract new audiences.

Brand love fostered sharing through influencer-partnerships, encouraging both homepreneurs and the public to spread the word.

- Consideration scores for the brand increased by 6 PP

- Imagery scores like ‘Good for special occasions’ increased by 10 PP

- 95% reach within the target set, driving a 24% share of voice within the category

- 43% New-To-Brand visitors on Amazon

- 8.7K homepreneur stores created

- DeltaX, Convosight, MapMyIndia, MyGate, Google, PayTM, Jio - delivered some of the highest traffic and engagement vs LY

- Organic PR news mentions worth 13M rupees or £125,000

- Videos saw 1.2X view-through rate against Celebrations parent Mondelēz's own benchmarks

- 1.96Mn unique people reached through a TV sponsorship focused on a homepreneur

- 2.4Bn overall impressions - 2x vs last year, with a similar budget