Brand and Talent Insights: Cadbury's Cadvent Campaign

Posted on: 30/11/2015



This Christmas Cadbury is launching its biggest ever advent calendar. 24 trucks, 24 doors, opening daily in 24 different locations and bringing joyful festive surprises to the United Kingdom & Ireland on the countdown to Christmas.

Throughout December we’re going to go behind the scenes with the people behind this campaign and provide you with an insight into their experiences and the moments of joy they have experienced as they travel the country.

meet the team

Above: David McDermott (left) and Steve Chick (right)

claire low – marketing manager (all year round & seasonal)

Claire joined Mondelēz International in 2012 as Marketing Manager for Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) where she lead the team to deliver key innovation launches, such as CDM Oreo, CDM Marvellous Creations and CDM Puddles. She recently moved to the Show You Care team as Marketing Manager on seasonal and all year round gifting.

"Through this ad, we wanted to capture the huge anticipation felt by consumers during the Christmas countdown. Cadbury has a well-loved place in family homes during the festive period, and has been bringing joy to the countdown with its advent calendars for more than 50 years. Inspired by this, we have created the ultimate advent calendar to deliver joy in a way that only Cadbury can this Christmas."

steve chick – brand manager (christmas & halloween)

Steve Chick finished the Mondelēz International UK & Ireland Sales and Marketing graduate scheme in 2012 and has since worked in brand marketing on a series of Cadbury's most famous brands - including Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Creme Egg and Cadbury Mini Eggs. He is now currently working as the Brand Manager for Cadbury's Christmas & Halloween ranges.

"Working on the #cadvent campaign has been a fantastic experience since I took over as the UK lead in July. A huge agency team, huge production and huge pressure - but it's so much easier when you have a great creative idea and the level of internal support we've been given."

david mcdermott – junior brand manager (christmas & halloween)

David joined Mondelēz International back in 2012 on the UK & Ireland Sales and Marketing graduate scheme and held roles in field sales, customer planning, marketing, and account management before securing his current role as Junior Brand Manager for Cadbury Christmas and Halloween in August 2015.

“The planning for the campaign started back in April/May time this year and when I came into the role it was time to flesh it out and bring it to life. Cadbury and Cadbury advent calendars are synonymous with Christmas and this really lets us countdown to Christmas with the public and really bring that human touch to generate excitement!”

David’s been working tirelessly on a whole host of activities, ranging from creating engaging digital and social content to keep up the momentum of the campaign, to feeding back on and helping to formulate the final creative for the television advert, to ensuring the campaign secures the relevant coverage at national and local level wherever the Cadbury advent calendar opens its doors. He even managed to get himself onto the radio…

“It was great working with Global Radio on various competitions and powerful content to generate interest and a real buzz around the campaign. I even had the opportunity to go to their headquarters in Leicester Square and record a script, so you’ll probably be hearing my voice on the airwaves very soon.”

monday 30th november 2015

On the eve of the launch, we met with David McDermott to see how he was feeling about the campaign now that it was only one sleep away.

“I’m really, really excited. It’s great to see everything become visible and tangible because for 4-5 months it’s been completely intangible and it’s brilliant to see it come to life.

We’re really confident about it all. All of our plans are coming together and, if anything, they’ve became even stronger during the last few weeks with some of the additions we’ve made. I’ve managed to see some of our plans for the truck contents being built and there’s so many moments of joy that we’re about to share with the public that there’s no chance of the campaign becoming stale!

I’m also feeling really festive, especially seeing all of the trucks in their Christmas attire this morning! It’s really made me excited to see the reactions of the public when we start opening the doors tomorrow.”


tuesday 1st december 2015

On the first day of Christmas we opened the doors of our festive truck in Liverpool One. This truck housed a grotto made from 2,500 Cadbury bars, including walls made of Cadbury Dairy Milk, a rug made of Roses, a chocolate Freddo painting and a Crunchie fireplace!

thursday 10th december 2015

On the tenth day of Christmas we shared some festive love on the streets of Edinburgh. We encouraged customers to show they cared in order to win some chocolate treats with our gigantic mistletoe!

monday 14th december 2015

On the fourteenth day of Christmas we brought an early White Christmas to the streets of Woolwich and brought a host of chocolate treats to share! Following this event, we received some great comments from one happy resident - Kate.

"This morning as I walked to work there was a surge of excitement around our square which is normally pretty bleak and depressing and this evening when returning there were children and parents and lots of laughing due to your cadvent which had visited us.

Your team who made the decision to visit us need a huge recognition of appreciation for choosing Woolwich as a venue. For one day you made it truly magical and it lost it's generally unhappy facade.

I would like to think that you would commend the team personally who helped with this day today - they really made a lot of people's days today, including mine."


saturday 19th december 2015

On the seventeenth day of Christmas we brought our Cadbury Cinema to York where the public could sit down in a beautiful location, watch a film and tuck into some of our fantastic snacks. We received the following fantastic comment from a pleased customer - Kelly.

"It was absolutely fabulous. Such a festive feeling. Thank you for spoiling us, Cadbury's. Hot Chocolate, the Snowman and yummy sweeties. A wonderful end to our day in York. Thank you."

monday 21st december 2015

On the twenty first day of Christmas Shakin' Stevens rocked Old Spitalfields Market while we dished out plenty of our tasty treats.

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talent and brand insights: cadbury's cadvent campaign

Posted on: 30/11/15
This Christmas Cadbury is launching its biggest ever advent calendar. Hear from the marketing team behind the campaign as the doors begin to open across the UK & Ireland.