CARAMILK - Modern Dance

At one point in my past, I had the privilege of being the Brand Manager on Cadbury's iconic CARAMILK candy bar.

This is a brand with a rich history of great television commercials that developed a mystique around the brand. Here is an execution from 1973 that set the tone for the campaign.



I was so glad to find a clip of the commercial I worked on when I was on the brand. It was essentially a remake of 2001: a Space Odyssey, but we only aired it for 13 weeks because, the day we started the shoot was also the day of the Challenger disaster.



Now we come to the latest execution.



To me, it's hard to see how this commercial ads value to this brand, and I have to say I'm embarassed that this has entered the brand's creative portfolio.

I'm assuming this was inspired by Cirque de Soleil, and this is based solely on the design of the costumes the dancers wear. Unfortunately, the costumes do not enhance the seductiveness or charm of the brand. They just look clunky and weird.

The dance itself appears to be well choreographed in terms of execution but, again, there is at best only a weak connection between the movements and the brand concept or character. The whole dance, to me, makes no sense. There is no logical progression from one dequence to the next; no sense of flow - and the main idea behind the brand is "the soft, flowing caramel".

The idea of using dance to represent the CARAMILK brand had great potential. Using Cirque de Soleil as a concept behind the dance would have been great.

However, the execution leaves so much to be desired it fails to make CARAMILK a brand that a contemporary consumer would desire.