Describe the creative idea

Diwali is the festival of lights. But last year the pandemic adversely affected the economy, dampening the festivities. Everyone needed a little help to get back on their feet, especially the small local stores. So we launched #NotJustACadburyAd where we didn’t just advertise for ourselves but thousands of small businesses. We mapped local stores across India through their pin codes and geo-targeted the customised ads promoting these stores locally. The AI created thousands of versions of the same ad resulting in the first ever hyper-personalised ad. This prompted every viewer watching the ad to support their local stores, thus making everyone’s Diwali happier and sweeter.

Describe the execution

For Diwali 2020, Cadbury India leveraged tech and AI to launch India’s first ever hyperlocal and hyper-personalised ad which advertised not just for itself but also for over 1800+ small shops and businesses with no digital presence. In a difficult year like 2020, Cadbury wanted to inspire people to do what’s right by reminding them to support their local retailers. The many small stores and businesses whose functionality had crippled under the Covid related lockdowns. This was going to hit hard even more so during Diwali, a festive opportunity of usually high business. Through this campaign, Cadbury aimed to share the festive warmth with the small businesses that were hit the most due to the pandemic. By customising the Cadbury Diwali ad to feature the names of the stores present in and around the location of the viewer of the ad. Thus a person residing in some part of Delhi, would see the names of the stores within a 2km radius around their vicinity. Likewise for a person residing in Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore or Kolkata would see the shops in and around their location. This was made possible by geo-targeting over 260+ pin codes, making a bank of all the stores located in these pin-codes and using an algorithm that captured the nearby jeweller, optician, apparel store, a general store and featured them in the ad alongside the local store from where you could pick a box of Cadbury as well. The video ran 20 days prior to the festival of Diwali in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Lucknow, jaipur, Ahemdabad and Chandigarh and reminding everyone to support their local stores during the hard times. The ad puts a spotlight on generosity with a thought-provoking ending: ‘When all of us support our local stores, all of us can have a Happy Diwali’.