It’s not quite Easter, but you can already join in an egg hunt. Cadbury announced a new campaign in which they will be hiding their popular Cadbury Creme Eggs in other brands’ TV, outdoor and print ads.
The Mondolez-owned is promoting the White Chocolate Cadbury Creme Egg with the new campaign. On their website, there are step-by-step instructions on how you can spot the eggs and maybe be a lucky winner and earn yourself £10,000 or about $12,730.
The underground hacker-style video about the campaign at huntthewhitecremeegg.com shows a woman with Cadbury Creme under her eyes instead of camouflage paint. The video delays and freezes as she explains how to play the egg hunt.
“White creme eggs are back, thousands of them, but these gooey goodies aren’t just in stores anymore,” she said. “Somehow these devious delights have infiltrated TV ads, social feeds, billboards, websites and who knows where else.”
A 10-second spot on Cadbury’s YouTube channel uses the same secret mission style theme. This time a man yells “Creme egg hunting season is back!” and proceeds to put the creme under his eyes. Not much explanation of the hunt, but the shot is followed by the campaign’s website in an effort to drive potential “hunters” to learn more.
Cadbury’s infiltration of other ads plays on the idea of brand hijacking and comes after Tide’s brilliant “It’s a #TideAd” during last year’s Super Bowl. “Hijacking” and brand safety have been huge issues in marketing lately, spawning extreme seriousness and humor. No one is quite sure how Cadbury will insert itself into other brand’s ads, however, the “hunt” doesn’t start until January 13. The campaign concludes on Easter, April 21.
According to Adweek, only 1,000 vouchers will be awarded for the white eggs and 30,000 vouchers for the traditional eggs.
Last year, Cadbury did another egg hunt through Facebook. The one-hour live event invited Australian users to search for the egg in a 360-degree virtual landscape. The first person to spot the egg won some chocolate goodies. The event attracted about 220,000 visitors. In 2017, the company got some heat from the Church of England for not using the religious holiday in their marketing, even though Cadbury dismissed the claim and said they did visibly use the word ‘Easter.’