From Cocoa to Cadbury Diary Milk

Brand Strategy

The Production Flow: From Cocoa to Cadbury Diary Milk

In 1904, Cadbury Dairy Milk was born when John’s son, George Cadbury perfected the rich and creamy milk chocolate recipe. Today, Cadbury Dairy Milk is managed under Kraft foods in Singapore.

At the heart of the Cadbury Dairy Milk is cocoa. Production starts at the Singapore cocoa refinery factory (in Jurong Tuas) where the top quality cocoa beans are processed to produce the cocoa mass – which contains 53% cocoa and cocoa butter – the basis for all chocolate products. After which the ‘cocoa mass’ is transported to the Cadbury factory in Ringwood, Victoria or Claremont, Tasmania to be converted into full dairy milk chocolate.

Segmentation and Targeting

One notable form of customer segmentation that Cadbury utilitizes is behaviorial segmentation, which is based on actual customer decision-making processes towards Cadbury’s products. Once dividing these customers by that base, they target them by providing specific product offerings. The relevant segments are the following: The Break Segment, Impulse Segment and Take-home Segment.

Break Segment

This segment describes products which are normally consumed as a snatched break and often with tea or coffee. This would make up a part of a meal and usually will be used a form of dessert substitution. Some examples of products that cater to this would be the newest product to the Dairy Milk range, Cadbury Dairy Milk’s Bubbly. These products are packages in small quantity, ranging from 50grams to 60 grams.

Impulse Segment

These products are most often purchased on impulse while consumers are walking buy or shopping for other household goods. They are strategically placed at eye-level or near the checkout counter so that consumers can make an unplanned purchase. Promotions are also often used to encourage consumers to purchase the chocolates.Both the Cadbury dairy milk block-size and bite-size could be purchased on impulse, depending on its packaging and its presentation.

In terms of product packaging, they are similar to those of the “break segment” – small and compact. Their products are offered in 50grams to 60 grams.

Take-home Segment

This describes products that are normally purchased in supermarkets, taken home and consumed at a later stage due to its sheer quantity. Part of this segment is called the gift segment, where the consumers will take home a box of chocolates in the form of a gift for someone else. An example of this would be Cadbury’s large Dairy Milk blocks(top first image) or the Cadbury Celebrations box (not available in Singapore).

For the Singapore’s market, these products are offered in bigger blocks, ranging within the 190grams to 220 grams chocolate segment.

In a nutshell, this is how the brand managers at Cadbury Singapore, understands our consumer segmentation.

Cadbury’s Marketing Mix

 

Product

Cadbury worldwide has a very strong brand presence and an even stronger product range. If we were to take into account its entire worldwide portfolio, then we would end up with over 57 sub-brands under its confectionary category, over 11 different types of desserts (with at least two sub-brands in each dessert category), 7 types of beverages, 3 types of biscuits, 4 types of cooking products, and at least 20 different types of miscellaneous chocolate sub-brands. Needless to say, it’s a huge umbrella brand which balances its brand equity with its diverse product range.

However, in Singapore alone, Cadbury has not unleashed its entire product line. It has selected its few megabrands and released them to gain an appreciable market share. Cadbury’s products in Singapore alone consist of Dairy Milk, Bubbly, Dream, 3-in-1 Chocolate Drink, Chocolate Rolls, Old Gold, Boost, Freddo, Crunchie, Wispy, and Time-out. These sub-brands can be loosely segregated into the confectionary and beverages categories.

One of greatest product of all time is our Cadbury Dairy Milk. Cadbury Dairy Milk was perfected in 1904 when George Cadbury, together with Bournville experts in chocolate production, started to research for new recipe and production methods. Compared to the Swiss chocolate that uses condensed milk, Cadbury Dairy Milk uses fresh liquid milk or to be more specific – A glass and a half fresh liquid milk in every half pound of chocolate.

In Singapore, we offer 12 flavours under the Dairy Milk’s brand. These 12 flavours are the Dairy Milk itself, cashew, dream, dud, fruit & nut, hazelnut, crunchie, macadamia, marble, roast almond, top deck, and blackforest. We had also recently launched a new Dairy Milk’s flavour – Cadbury Dairy Milk Bubbly.

Because we understand and listen to our consumers’ needs and wants, we underwent a radical change in our packaging for the Dairy Milk in 2009. From using thin flimsy plastic wrapper, we switched to using thick sturdy paperboard to package our Dairy Milk chocolate so that handling and storage of our products are made easier and fresher.

The Old Packaging

The New Packaging in 2009

 

 

 

 

Price

Cadbury has tried to position itself as somewhat of an affordable luxury. By keeping its price relatively high, it has managed to give competition to some of the premium brands like Ferrro Rocher. The price of its star brand, Dairy Milk, ranges from $1.70 to $2.65 SGD (Source: Fairprice and 7-11) based on which store is selling it. It also sells its take-home 200 gram Dairy Milk bar for $5.20, which is quite a large amount for a chocolate bar.

Distribution

Cadbury in Singapore has a strong distribution network and its star products such as Dairy Milk and Time-out can be found in almost any store. Its primary distribution network consists of all convenience stores, supermarkets, hotels, airport duty-free shops, and almost anywhere else where chocolate confectionary is sold. Its targeted at families and is said to be “everyone’s chocolate” which makes it a universally available brand.

Promotions and Advertising

In Singapore, we try to continuously manage and improve our consumers’ experience with our Dairy Milk Chocolate. One of the platform that we are present is our social media presence on Facebook. Through our Facebook, we are able to communicate our new promotions, drive new campaigns and interact with our loyal customers.

As we interact with our customers, we do not focus just on discussing about Cadbury products. In trying to establish an intimate relationship (like friendship), we share the history of chocolate, chocolate news around the world, new chocolate consumption methods, and choosing our “Fan of the Month” and make them the profile picture of our Facebook page.

In terms of promotion, we strive to give our customers the best value for their money and ‘indulgence’.One of the ways is to bring in seasonal products like Cadbury Crème Egg, Cadbury Freddo, and Cadbury Milk Tray.

Complementing these promotions, we are constantly initiating new campaigns to reach out to new customers and reward our existing ones. One of these campaigns is the Cadbury Dairy Milk Shioklaty Moments where we get our customers to share a photo of them of their happiest moments while consuming Cadbury Chocolate. Adding on, we also try to co-create our Cadbury brand with our customers. Through this campaign, we will feature the winner of the ‘Shioklaty Moments’ campaign on our bus shelters’ advertising poster.

Advertisements like the “Cadbury Eyebrow” and “Cadbury World” are not locally produced. However, being part of the Cadbury (and Kraft) Family, such productions are produced locally (not in Singapore) but advertised globally. When these productions are brought into the local context, and in this case into Cadbury Singapore, our marketing team will discuss local campaigns to complement these productions.

So for example “Cadbury World” was part of a global marketing effort and was aired in Singapore through television. To ensure the success of this marketing campaign, “Win A Trip on SQ380 to London, Paris, Syndey or Tokyo” contest was initiated in 2009 and this drives up the sales of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate.

 

 

 

 

Looking Forward

Cadbury has plans to move from a product brand to a service brand, where it intends to open up cafes termed “Cadbury Cocoa House”. These cafes will be Cadbury branded, traditional English style cafes where you can expect to enjoy a delicious afternoon tea, along with a range of Cadbury-themed goods. Cadbury aims to have an edge over rivals such as Starbucks and Pret a Manger by selling alcohol alongside its more traditional beverages. The first of these delicious chocolate themed cafes is proposed to be constructed in London.

If this service-themes proposition works out, then Cadbury can hope to go worldwide with the same idea by opening up stores in Singapore. Seeing the local success of Milo as a chocolate and family brand, Cadbury would like to attempt becoming the same in the confectionery category. They have made significant headway into breaking into Singapore’s saturated chocolate industry through their use of innovative social-media campaigns.