Cadbury Takes Sharp Turns into Left Field

Everyone knows that Cadbury makes chocolate, and they've proven that they aren't idiots through their last branding push. They've gone off the deep end again and again. It's smart, it's funny, it's cool and it can easily set them apart from the other very boring candy companies out there floundering around in oldy-ville making the same old thing. I found out about it here and here.

The gorilla commercial is old news, but I love it. Has absolutely nothing to do with chocolate, but the seriousness of the horrible Phil Collins tune, the long pause and camera motion before the action and the payoff drum solo is genius. Just do a quick search on youtube to see what kind of conversation this began.



The new commercial takes another leap into the weird with these strangely serious children and their dancing eyebrows. Again, it's genius and again the conversation ripples through the internet.



It's strange, it's different, even though the product isn't. That's some branding going on folks, let's see what happens next.

Whopper Sacrifice: Burger King Strikes Again, This Time on Facebook

It looks as if Burger King had a hat trick under their belt the whole time. They have recently launched a Facebook application called "Whopper Sacrifice". A genius little application that allows you to sacrifice 10 of your current Facebook friends for a coupon for a free Whopper.

They've recently made large impacts online and in traditional media with their Whopper Virgins campaign and the Flame Cologne they introduced that turned out to be an actual product that smelled like a flame broiled burger. Yummy!

Why do I like this? It's simple, it actually offers something but not for nothing, and it's so completely different from any Facebook application out there, that it's going to get some attention.

So it's a simple of a concept to understand. Believe me, this is where a lot of things go wrong. If the consumer doesn't "get it" extremely quick, they're gone. This is focused at Facebook users and anyone that uses Facebook knows the concept of "friends". The interface is also easy, just scroll through your friends in the application and burn them each one by one!

It actually offers something, but not for nothing. The Facebookers are weary and suspicious of the marketing speak for "free" anything. If you start your interaction with that consumer in that way...you're going to lose them. However, this isn't free. You actually have to give Burger King something in return. Brilliant! The walls come down and you have they're attention. This and most of this crowd has at least 10 friends that they could burn. I've personally been wanting to clean the closets out long ago.

It's a different experience. Yes it's a Facebook application and I agree that I've had the feeling that they were useless soon after "Pirates vs Ninjas", but this one's worth another look. This is a different concept for the application, it's not really asking for you to try to keep up w/ anything, it serves it's purpose and it's done. You get your Whopper and Burger King gets your eyeballs on their logo for a pretty good amount of time while you scroll through your friends, deciding which ones that you really just friended them to see if they were still hot after highschool.

So, I've been impressed with Burger King's interactive projects since subserviant chicken and they keep impressing me. I just don't understand how other highly brand oriented consumer products haven't caught the clue yet. Find a better agency folks!