Cadbury Dairy Milk: Is chocolate a "feeling"? Or a "thought"?

The biggest challenge for Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) was that Indians saw chocolate as a foreign treat, and ‘for kids’. To get Indian adults to consume chocolate they needed to change the eating habits of a nation. Rather than taking on tradition and culture to tackle this, the communications aligned itself with Indian customs, in order to make acceptance easier. The campaign pitched chocolate as 'meetha' (a phrase used in India for referring to traditional sweets). Using stories set in typical Indian celebratory situations, when sweets are typically consumed in India by adults, but told with twists and humour, it made the brand more engaging and Indian. The campaign increased chocolate penetration faster in three years than in an entire decade before that. Between 2003 and 2009 brand profits grew at an impressive 24%.