VCCP’s ‘Glass & a half’ campaign wins IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix

In addition to the Grand Prix, the Effectiveness paper entitled, "There’s a glass & a half in everyone" How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes took home the Special Prize for Best Demonstration of Purpose (For-Profit) and a Gold award.

After a turbulent few years for the company, during which two million British households had stopped buying Cadbury Dairy Milk, VCCP transformed the national treasure by rediscovering its intrinsic purpose – that of generosity. This was born of both the core feature of the product - that it generously contains a glass and a half of milk – and the roots of the organisation, founded on Quaker values.

By channelling this intrinsic purpose, Cadbury oriented strategy and comms activity around the belief that there’s a generous instinct within all of us and a wider purpose to inspire more generosity in the world. In short, by showing "there’s a glass and a half in everyone" The paper outlines that, “unlike ‘bolted-on’ versions of purpose sometimes deployed in marketing, this approach was not born of a contemporary issue, nor made with a ‘with us or against us’ stance on a divisive societal issue.” Instead, it explains, Cadbury set out to unite people, and in doing so, demonstrated how purpose that is overtly connected to brand and product can drive affinity, equity and sales.

To bring this strategy to life, the campaign which launched in 2018, focussed on two primary areas, storytelling and storydoing. Storytelling involved creating emotionally engaging stories of everyday Britons using Cadbury Dairy Milk to demonstrate generosity to each other, including ‘Mum’s birthday’; ‘Fence’ and ‘Bus’.

Meanwhile, Storydoing centred on developing emotionally engaging Cadbury initiatives at commercially significant times that inspire all of us to show generosity to each other. These initiatives include the Cadbury Worldwide Hide – a digital platform where people could virtually hide an Easter Egg anywhere in the world for a loved one - and Cadbury Secret Santa, a digital platform and physical installations that enabled people to send chocolate secretly to a loved one. On a national scale, the campaign also partnered with Age UK on the ‘Donate your words’ initiative and supported independent chocolate shops.

The accompanying media strategy was to bring people together through emotional stories and experiences, placing heavy emphasis on broadcast channels such as TV, VOD and OOH, supported by digital activity. Despite the annual media budget remaining broadly the same, the strategy generated increasingly positive results – including an uplift in the brand’s share of search.

Over four years, the campaign has seen remarkable success. In addition to re-establishing love for Cadbury Dairy Milk and rebuilding the Cadbury brand, "There’s a glass & a half in everyone" has seen annual sales value increase 22% (compared to a target of 9% growth in 5 years), and by 2021 Cadbury’s annual revenue was £261m higher than in 2017. Cadbury became Britain’s fastest growing grocery brand – worth over £1.4 billion per year.

Other key results:

• Cadbury Dairy Milk achieved its highest penetration levels on record, with 75% of British households buying Cadbury Dairy Milk
• The number of people who said they’d heard something positive from the brand – or about the brand – tripled from 3% in the two years before the launch, to 10% afterwards
• 36% increase in people’s willingness to recommend Cadbury to their friends, family and colleagues
• 30% increase in perceived product quality/significant increase in agreement with ‘taste I love’
• 2 percentage points increase in market share

Says Chair of Judges and Salesforce President and Chief Strategy Officer, Gavin Patterson: "Congratulations to VCCP for winning the 2022 IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix. This paper is an exceptional example of long-term marketing and the benefits that can bring."

Says Convenor of Judges and Global Chief Strategy Officer at McCann, Harjot Singh: "This paper is a fantastic demonstration of how a purpose anchored in truth about the product can be used effectively in marketing and delivering measurable impact. It is particularly powerful in this case that the purpose was used to generate renewed love for a heritage brand. Judges highlighted the innovative multimedia integration over a long-term period."

Acknowledged as the world’s most rigorous and prestigious Awards scheme, the IPA Effectiveness Awards require winners to demonstrate the value created by their marketing and communications activity.

VCCP was also awarded a Bronze for their work with Domino's. In total, eight Gold, seven Silver and 13 Bronze prizes, along with 10 Special Prizes, were awarded to companies from the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and Chile across Not-for-profit and Global, Regional and Single Market categories.

All winning case studies are available to download from the IPA website or from WARC, video summaries of each winning paper are also available. The 2022 IPA Effectiveness Awards are sponsored by Google, System1, Thinkbox, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn and WARC.

The IPA Effectiveness Awards kick off the EffWorks Global 2022 Conference, which will feature an industry leading line-up of marketing effectiveness experts and cultural commentators presenting a mix of new effectiveness R&D, unique case studies, keynotes, panels and live Q&A’s across two days of content, including an in-depth reflection on the Awards and Grand Prix paper with Chair Gavin Patterson and Convenor of Judges Harjot Singh at 13.20 on Thursday 13 October.

Full list of 2022 IPA Effectiveness Awards Winners:

Special Prizes:

• Grand Prix:
  • Cadbury, Mondelēz by VCCP - Cadbury - “There’s a glass & a half in everyone” How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes
• The Channon Prize for Best New Learning:
  • Tesco by BBH and MediaCom - From serving shoppers to serving the nation
• Best B2B:
  • PERGRAPHICA©, Mondi by True - From pushing paper to pulling on heartstrings
• Best Demonstration of Purpose (For-Profit):
  • Cadbury, Mondelēz by VCCP - Cadbury - “There’s a glass & a half in everyone” How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes
• Best Demonstration of Purpose (Not-For-Profit):
  • SickKids Foundation by Cossette - Delivering Transformational Growth. SickKids VS The Greatest Challenges in Child Health
• Best Small Budget:
  • Sandy Hook Promise by BBDO NY - Back-to-School Essentials
• The President’s Prize for Behavioural Change:
  • ITV and VegPower by adam&eveDDB - Eat Them to Defeat Them by ITV and VegPower: How a big, silly idea solved a big, serious problem
• The Broadbent Prize for Best Dedication to Effectiveness:
  • McDonald’s
• Effectiveness Company of the Year:
  • adam&eveDDB
• Effectiveness Network of the Year:
  • OMD Group

Gold winners:

• Not-for-profit Entries:
  • SickKids Foundation by Cossette - Delivering Transformational Growth. SickKids VS The Greatest Challenges in Child Health
• Regional Market Entries:
  • Aldi UK by McCann Manchester and UM Manchester - Kevin versus John - How a humble carrot usurped a national treasure to win the UK’s Christmas Ad crown
• Single Market Entries:
  • Cadbury, Mondelēz by VCCP - Cadbury - “There’s a glass & a half in everyone” How intrinsic purpose can transform a brand’s fortunes
  • ITV and VegPower by adam&eveDDB - Eat Them to Defeat Them by ITV and VegPower: How a big, silly idea solved a big, serious problem
  • KFC, Yum! Brands by Mother and Mindshare - KFC: ‘The Right Way’ to rebuild a brand
  • McDonald's by Leo Burnett London and OMD UK - How We Got Customers Lovin' It And Kept Them Lovin' It, No Matter What.
  • McDonald's by Wieden + Kennedy New York - Famous Orders – How McDonald’s created a new generation of fans
  • Schmackos, Mars Petcare by adam&eveDDB - Sales Go Wacko For Schmackos

Silver winners:

• Global Market Entries:
  • Baileys, Diageo by craig + bridget and Mother - The pleasure dividend
• Not-for-profit Entries:
  • Sandy Hook Promise by BBDO NY - Back-to-School Essentials
• Single Market Entries:
  • Boursin, Bel by Spark Foundry - From the Christmas Cheeseboard to the Summer Picnic Blanket
  • Cazoo by Engine and Cazoo - Cazoo - The art of instilling confidence
  • Long Live The Local, British Beer and Pub Association by Havas London and Havas Media - How the many changed the mind of an audience of one
  • Tesco by BBH and MediaCom - From serving shoppers to serving the nation
  • Waitrose & Partners by adam&eveDDB and Manning Gottlieb OMD - Making Purpose Taste Good

Bronze winners:

• Not-for-profit Entries:
  • Census 2021, Office for National Statistics by M&C Saatchi and Manning Gottlieb OMD - The Power of Us; Involving Everyone in Census 2021
  • Médecins Sans Frontières UK by M.i. Media - How smart media investment delivered transformative change for MSF
• Regional Market Entries:
  • PERGRAPHICA®, Mondi by True - From pushing paper to pulling on heartstrings
• Single Market Entries:
  • Barclays by BBH - Purpose Pays: The Next Chapter
  • Cherries from Chile, ASOEX A.G. (Chilean Fresh Fruit Exporters Association) by ASOEX - Enjoying the Red Moment in China with Chilean Cherries
  • Domino's by VCCP - The hills are alive with the sound of pizza
  • Dove, Unilever by Ogilvy UK - Taking on taking selfies. How Dove continues to deliver business value through social impact
  • eve Sleep by Creature - Helping the nation switch off with eve Sleep
  • Hargreaves Lansdown by McCann Demand - Robbing the bank – Turning the nation’s savers into investors
  • Lamb, Meat & Livestock Australia by The Monkeys Australia part of Accenture Song - How ‘Make Lamb, Not Walls’ made history for MLA
  • Rugby League World Cup 2021 by McCann Manchester and UM Manchester - RLWC2021: How togetherness sold tickets in lockdown Britain
  • Vodafone by Grey London - Curated inconsistency: how being inconsistent helped Vodafone Ireland reboot its broadband business
  • Volkswagen by adam&eveDDB and PHD Media - Fuelling the future: How advertising helped fund the re-engineering of Volkswagen