Cadbury Bournville tempts visitors at Mumbai airport

A huge oversized bar of partially uncovered dark chocolate at the Mumbai airport seems to have both travellers and visitors drooling.

The chocolate bar is a creation of Ogilvy & Mather for the launch of Cadbury's dark chocolate brand, Bournville.

"It's been just a week since we started it, but a lot of people have called up to say that they saw the bar and wished that it were an actual bar of Bournville. So, the idea of getting people to drool at the sight of the bar and make them go and buy one has worked," says Manoj Shetty, senior creative director, O&M.

O&M’s creative and outdoor teams worked on the concept of putting up a model of the newly launched chocolate bar, with the wrapper and foil partially torn off. It took a week to create the bar of chocolate, which has intricate detailing to make it look real. The site at the airport – Terminal 1B, which is used for domestic flight arrivals – has been taken up for a period of 30 days.

Cadbury India and the agency wanted to create a mystique around the new Bournville, the first premium, dark chocolate to reach Indian shores. The campaign theme created for this was, “You don't buy a Bournville, you earn it.”

"By virtue of being the first, we had the opportunity to pitch it as high as we liked. Rituals were added to enhance the eating experience, like gazing at it, hearing it snap, taking in the aroma, thus making it more valuable and meaningful. The idea of earning it is simple: You wouldn't drink your most expensive wine on the odd Monday. You'll wait for a time when you think you really deserve it – when you've earned it, to be precise. Why not do that for Bournville as well?" says Shetty.

As part of the outdoor campaign running in Mumbai and the National Capital Region, four other outdoor creatives were designed and displayed on hoardings, bus shelters and foot overbridges. The four creatives read: “44% Cocoa, 100% Bliss”; “Fine. Dark. Chocolate”; “Rich Cocoa, Hazelnut, Almond, Raisin & Nut. Choices, Choices”; and “You don't buy a Bournville, you earn it”. The high-visibility Patel Bridge on Marine Drive in South Mumbai was also taken up for the launch campaign.

Interestingly, the outdoor creatives were different from those of print. Print consisted of creatives such as “Booker, Oscars, Nobel, Bournville... Hope you get the drift”, with the body copy talking about the brand experience.

Shetty explains why different creatives were used in both media. "In print, we decided to use intriguing headlines. The intrigue provokes the reader into reading the copy, where we could describe the brand and its personality in greater detail. In outdoor, we required just short, snappy descriptors, hence another approach."

Purohit adds, "The objective of outdoor is to build the romance around the origin of its ingredients and the specialness of the chocolate. Print is about building imagery and relevant associations. Both talk the same language."

The team from O&M that worked on the Bournville campaign includes Abhijit Avasthi, Manoj Shetty, Siddhartha Dutta and Srijeeth Kodoth from the creative side, and Samrat Bedi, Kaustubh Mahajan, Anish Kotian and Lahar Joshi from client servicing, who worked with Sanjay Purohit, Nikhil Rao and Amit Singh from Cadbury's.

The Bournville campaign, which was launched on December 24, 2008, consists of a TV commercial with an international feel, print and outdoor and below-the-line activities.

The brand is conducting sampling at various locations, where it can get close to the target audience. At all sampling locations, the objective is to get the audience to enjoy the chocolate in the ideal environment and in the right way. Sampling is being undertaken in top pubs, top gyms, corporate parks and offices, in-flight, wine-tasting sessions and elite events in the launch cities.

Purohit shares that the marketing spend on Bournville will be significantly higher than that for other launches, given that it is a new category. Outdoor spends for this brand have also been huge.

Bournville will be available only in the top 20 cities of India, in most stores that maintain cold storage facilities. Regarding projected growth, Purohit says, "We expect the brand to add around 4-5 per cent to our total growth in the coming year."