Cadbury’s interactive campaign can’t match Tippex’s “Shoot the bear”

Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 09.52.33Cadbury Dairy Milk's (CDM) new social media campaign seeks to drive consumer interaction, but its much less effective than the now famous Tippex "Shoot the bear" campaign which it seems to be inspired by.

The CDM campaign interrupted by Yahoo usage the other day. You are faced with a picture of a snoozing security guard is supposed to be guarding the secret recipe of CDM.

You are then invited to type in the box the way you think he should be woken up. Of course, the first thing you do is type in a rude word if, like me, you are a school kid at heart.I then typed "song" and got a guy playing an electric guitar rather loudly.

And then you can share your news on Twitter and invite others to play the game. Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 09.53.36

This feels to me much weaker than the campaign it seems to be heavily "inspired" by: Tippex's "Shoot the bear" campaign I posted on here in 2011. As a reminder, in the Tippex YouTube film a charcter in the online ad reaches out of the film to take the Tippex. He whites out "shoots" from the film title "A hunter shoots a bear" and invites you to write another word in. Whatever you type is then acted out (dancing with the bear, hugging the bear etc.). The film has now been viewed 20 million times, and is claimed to have actually built sales.

Here's why I suggest the Tippex idea is much stronger.

Screen Shot 2012-07-06 at 10.07.11

1. Enterainment

Most viral campaigns go viral because they are highly entertaining, using a combination of humour, sex and "spectacle". Tippex scores very highly, with the man and bear sequences very funny. It also has a sense of spectacle through the character taking the Tippex out of the YouTube page.

In contrast, the Cadbury campaign is pretty dull. I care about the bear getting shot, or not. I don't really give a toss about someone stealing the CDM secret recipe. And the scenes acted out when you type in a word are not that funny.

2. Edge

The Tippex campaign has some edge, adding appeal to the young audience of students that it is aimed at, and who are the biggest social media consumers. The actors swear a lot, saying "Shoot the f***king bear!", and talking about who one of the guys in the film has slept with.

Also, when you type in the obvious words to do with sex in the box "The hunter ……. the bear", you get a funny sequence with this actually happening, but censored out. In contrast, on the tame CDM site you get an aplogy that this naughty word is "Not in the Joyville dictionary".

Screen Shot 2012-07-06 at 10.13.58

3. Brand linkage

Last but not least, the genius of the Tippex campaign is integrating the product into the film, with the Tippex used to white out "hunts" for you to type something else. In the CDM film there is good use of Cadbury purple colours, but the link to the product is much weaker, limited to the story around the secret recipe being guarded.

In conclusion, if you are going to try and "Do a Tippex" with an entertaining film, you need to make it highly entertaining, be brave to have some edge and link your product as a hero in the story.