I hate the forced rationalization used to justify creating this excellent example of advertainment—“it's just an effort to make you smile, in exactly the same way Cadbury Dairy Milk does.” The ad is undeniably hilarious, but I take issue with the advertising strategy behind it. Chocolate makes people smile? Really?
That's pretty weak, isn't it? In my experience, the arrival of chocolate tends to excite people. At the sight of Cadbury, I've seen people's eyes light up and bulge out of their heads. I've seen their mouths drool like a bulldog shot up with Novacaine. Smiling is essentially a secondary response in this case, like blaming the dog after you fart—it's totally involuntary.
So saying that Cadbury makes people smile seems like really underselling the product. Would anyone use that same “it makes you smile” approach to sell Victoria's Secret underwear as opposed to selling the sex of it? I sure hope not.
In the end, this video is a flawless execution of a damn funny idea. For Cadbury's sake, I just wish it were actually on-brand and on-strategy.
