Cadbury's #HowDoYouSilk campaign got us thinking...

Visualise eating a chocolate bar. Here's the thing. Depending on the brand of chocolate you just envisioned, your style of consumption varies from those who thought differently. While a major part of the reason for this could be your innate way of eating, a good part of it is because of the way the brand has demonstrated consumption through advertisements and campaigns.

In 2018, Cadbury launched a campaign titled #HowDoYouSilk, a rather rhetorical question that enabled the brand to showcase all the diverse styles of devouring its products.

We spotted a picture on the brand's Facebook handle, which carried the #HowDoYouSilk narrative. Boasting a flow of caramel from a piece of Silk, the picture reads – 'Lick. Sip. Slurp.'.

Typically, we are used to seeing Cadbury Silk depict a vaguely romantic setting, or something along similar lines, where characters are seen weaving a web of emotions around the chocolates.

What often goes overlooked in these ads, is the brand's attempt to also subtly show the various ways of consuming the product. If you think about it, all these ads show the characters eating Cadbury Silk, in an apparently sloppy manner. Here are a few more examples.

Year on year, the brand has tried to sketch a signature style of consumption, consistent throughout their ad films. But, is Cadbury the only brand doing this? Well, not really. We've seen similar ad films from other players in the market that hinge on 'style of consumption', blatantly or faintly. For example, here are Nestle KitKat's not-so-old ad films that make it known how the product is to be unwrapped and eaten.

The characters are seen rushing to get their hands on KitKat, because, wait for it, 'Break Toh Banta Hai'. The tag line itself is revealing of the brand's illustrations. You peel the cover and then break the bars – a style distinctly owned by the brand.

Here is Amul's promotional ad for its range of chocolates. While the voice-over makes ingredients and the taste of the product its primary focus, the visuals subtly denote the way you'd consume it.

Nestle Munch has also had its fair share of ad films that make a case for the chocolate wafer's crunchiness. 'The crunchier, the better' has always been the motto of the wafer brand, yet what is interesting about the ad films is the way they always manage to show the characters eating the product – peel from the top and have a crunch.

From the kids' chocolate candy category, we've seen Kinder Joy advertise a certain way of eating their product. Evident from the minuscule spoon they deliver with the product, the brand clearly wants the consumers to scoop their way through the candy – as is depicted in their ad films too.

While the list could go on forever, what this essentially means is that brands have evidently put in a lot of work to put forward the perception of how they want their products to stand out from the rest – especially in terms of consumption.