Cadbury Silk builds on its Valentine’s Day legacy with Zoya Akhtar and GenAI

Over the years, Cadbury Silk has become synonymous with love and Valentine’s Day. The smoother, creamier, and chunkier variant of the regular Dairy Milk chocolate has positioned itself as the go-to choice for expressing one’s love, especially on February 14. The brand engineered it in our minds with its famous campaign Looking for the right way to say it? Say it with Silk.

Just as lovers wait for their gifts from their special ones, one waits for Silk’s special Valentine’s campaign. This year, the brand has turned the spotlight on the little nuances of a relationship with its campaign, #StoryOfUS. It attempts to recreate and cherish the small moments of a love story. 

The chocolate brand from Mondelez has got on board director Zoya Akhtar and the magic of Gen AI to help lovers share a special Valentine's gift.

“Every Valentine's Day, Cadbury Silk has gone beyond being just a chocolate, it's been a storyteller of love, weaving moments that linger in the heart. This Valentine's Day, we're turning the spotlight on the often-overlooked, yet priceless, nuances of any relationship. Knowing their dreams, understanding their pet peeves, and acknowledging those small gestures that got you this far in love,” wrote Yukti Malik, brand manager of Cadbury Silk, on LinkedIn.

The special packaging of the Silk chocolates will be equipped with QR codes. One needs to scan it and upload their special moments. The brand will recreate it as an AI film to make it into an ideal gift for Valentine’s Day.

Over the years, the brand has used the most trending technology of the year to make Valentine’s Day Special for all lovebirds. 

In 2022, the brand allowed customers to send special messages to their sweet valentine. When they point their phone to any Silk ad, the augmented reality (AR) would turn the ad into that secret message that was written for them.

In 2021, Mondelez and Spotify teamed up to create a playlist-centric Valentine's Day-themed innovation. The paper covering the Silk bar bore a code for a Spotify playlist, which could be accessed through the Spotify app, and it led them to a specially curated Valentine's Day playlist. The playlist featured songs like 'Photograph' by Ed Sheeran and 'Can't Help Falling in Love' by Elvis Presley.

In 2020, the brand used Snapchat's sponsored lens filter to reach out to netizens. It enabled users to take pictures or videos of themselves – within the visible Cadbury Silk frame. The filter instructed one to blow a kiss at the camera, triggering the lens to the Cadbury Silk song in the background, while a heart-shaped piece of Cadbury Silk popped out of the bar, disappearing mid-air.

In 2018 the brand released the 'Pop Your Heart' campaign aiming to promote special edition Silk products. 

Before the tech innovations, it also innovated with print. On Valentine’s Day in 2015, the front page of Hindustan Times' Mumbai and Delhi editions came attached with Cadbury Silk Bands - ones transforming into flower ribbons that could be gifted along with a pack of Silk. Consumers had to only pull it out, wrap it around their Cadbury Silk packs and #SayitwithSilk to their loved ones.

Integrating technological innovation for its campaigns is not a new strategy for Cadbury’s. In Diwali 2021, the brand employed machine learning to replicate the face and voice of its brand ambassador, Shah Rukh Khan, allowing him to mention numerous local stores. This initiative effectively positioned the actor as the unofficial brand ambassador for numerous small businesses across India.