Cadbury 5 Star unveils an AI mush detector for Valentine’s Day

Cadbury 5 Star, unlike its romance-loving sibling Dairy Milk Silk, is doubling down on its counter-culture philosophy of ‘Do Nothing’ and rolling out a AI app for singles against mushy couples on Valentine’s Day.  

This descent into a dislike of romance is not evil. It is strategic and is fast becoming an annual ritual for the Mondelez-owned chocolate bar.

An 82-second animated commercial, a brainchild of WPP’s Ogilvy and Wavemaker, shows the AI mush detector a la an “unimaginably sophisticated AI”, and how it will help single people steer clear of mushy couples on the day of love.  

It will process data from a map which records where couples buy chocolates, where they are likely to go with them, and what they’ll do, to let you the user see “where all the mush is.” Consumers either have to visit this site (leads to a QR code) or scan the QR code on the pack to make use of this AI.

On doing so, they are notified of areas with high amounts of mush marked in red and messaging such as severe mush ahead, popular spot for cringey videos, and twinning couples expected.

“… our latest edition of Valentine’s Day campaign stands for all those who do not celebrate Valentine’s Day and will help them steer clear of any mush,” says Nitin Saini, Vice President - Marketing, Mondelez India, in a press release.

Sukesh Kumar Nayak, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy India was quoted as saying, ‘Valentine’s Day has become an annual event for Cadbury 5 Star to leverage and land its 'Do Nothing' counterculture attitude.

This year we have conceived and built a zany, dynamic webapp, the 5 Star Mush Detector - which helps people detect and avoid mush around them with a real-time map using various data points like nearby florists, gift shops, movie theatres, restaurants, etc.”

“What makes it even more irreverent, is that the data is also triangulated with chocolate sales to deduce mush. The more lovey-dovey an area, the redder it appears on the map.

The app also assists users to find mush-free spots, where they can escape to 'Do nothing'. To make it further engaging, friendly folks can help us in populating the real-time map during Valentine’s week, by reporting mushy places to avoid,” he added.

Shekhar Banerjee- Chief Client Officer and Office Head- West, Wavemaker India further said, “Continuing with our legacy of being a counter-culture brand, we are protecting the single souls from all the mush during Valentine’s Day with the mush detector app.

This campaign has been mounted on the back of exclusive partnerships with brands like Frozen Bottle, Keventers, and Smaaash to create mush-free zones for singles to hang around while escaping the mush!”

“In collaboration with popular faces that celebrate ‘singlehood’, we had a very unique use of hyperlocal targeting, we are alerting singles about the mushy areas to avoid, warning them to escape these zones through the mush detector app.”

This is not the first instance when Cadbury 5 Star has stood up for all the single folk before and during Valentine’s Day. It, in 2022, keeping up with the more outlandish aspect of its philosophy took over an island off the coast of Karnataka and renamed it ‘My Cousin’s Wedding’.

Why? Because anybody single on Valentine’s Day can say  “I’m going to my cousin's wedding”, without having to lie about what they’re doing on the day.

First seen in 2020, Cadbury 5 Star’s ‘Do Nothing’ philosophy has spawned not only an island but a bank, among other items in the commercials aired during the last three years.  

Credits:

Creative Agency: Ogilvy India

Chief Creative Officers: Sukesh Nayak, Kainaz Karmakar, Harshad Rajadhyaksha

Creative Team: Karunasagar Sridharan, Nishigandh Dhende, Jugal Joseph, Khushali Bhansali, Arushi Bajaria, Himanshu Sonparote

Planning Team: Ganapathy Balagopalan, Russell John, Shiksha Singh

Account Management: Maninder Bali, Beenu Kurup, Priya Thakkar, Patrick Britto, Vini Gada

Media Agency: Wavemaker India