Cadbury 5 Star ends its Valentine’s Day rivalry with a new campaign

After years of mocking the hype around Valentine’s Day, the chocolate brand has made a surprising move by vowing to ‘Restore Valentine’s Day’ this time around.

Known for its irreverent tagline, “Eat 5 Star. Do Nothing”, the chocolate brand has advocated for “doing nothing” on Valentine’s Day for several years now. Last year, with its “Destroy Valentines Day” campaign, 5 Star plotted to take the fizz out of Valentine’s Day by encouraging ‘uncles’ to hijack the occasion. But this February, the brand surprised audiences by announcing that they’re ‘ending the war’ against Valentine’s Day and undoing the damage of their own campaigns.

Conceived by Ogilvy, the campaign’s teaser video on the brand’s YouTube channel stated that the brand will bring Valentine’s Day back to the way it was meant to be celebrated by spending its marketing budget on sponsoring 1 million dates.

And now the brand has followed this up with a ‘reveal video’ which explains that in order to truly ‘restore’ the occasion, the brand has brought together experts to research the origins of Valentine’s Day to craft the ideal Valentine’s Day itinerary just like its creator might have planned it. By sponsoring 1 million such research-backed Valentine’s Day packages, the campaign hopes to restore Valentine’s Day to its pure and original form. However, the research has uncovered a surprising and unexpected twist.

Excited about the launch, Nitin Saini, vice president - marketing, Mondelez India, said “Cadbury 5 Star has always approached Valentine’s Day with playful mischief, and this year we wanted to evolve that narrative in a way that surprises audiences and drives engagement. By ‘ending the war’ and announcing 1 million sponsored dates only to reveal it as a classic 5 Star bluff, we created a campaign that brings consumers in on the joke while reinforcing our ‘Do Nothing’ philosophy. It’s our way of keeping Valentine’s Day fun, relaxed and unmistakably 5 Star.”

Speaking about the campaign, Sukesh Kumar Nayak, chief creative officer, Ogilvy India said “5 Star's Valentine's Day campaign has become an annual tradition by now, with several widely popular editions that offered to save audiences from all the hype. But this year, Karunasagar Sridharan (ECD) and the Ogilvy team proposed an idea that takes the brand in a completely unexpected direction - sponsoring 1 million dates in order to 'restore' the day to its original form. But there's a twist - a surprising truth bomb that might just change the way we look at Valentine's Day forever. Yet again, the brand has pulled off an unconventional stunt that only 5 Star can get away with. The campaign is supported by a web platform put together by our Creative Tech team where couples can sign up for the free dates."

Shekhar, president, client solutions, South Asia, Wavemaker added “This year, Cadbury 5Star takes its iconic ‘Do Nothing’ manifesto from philosophy to provocation. We introduce Esther Howland as a never-before-seen celebrity endorser not to celebrate romance, but to interrupt it. By reimagining this historical figure across modern cultural touchpoints, we position her as a ‘circuit breaker’ in the romance economy. From endless digital scrolls to real-world dating hotspots, our media intervention disrupts predictable Valentine narratives, nudging Gen Z to opt out, slow down, and unapologetically ‘Do Nothing.’”