Fair Trade

What We Did

In 2009, Cadbury Dairy Milk was certified Fair Trade, making it the largest Fair Trade Certified confection product in the world. So Cadbury asked us to create an awareness campaign to tell Canada about its newly acquired Fair Trade certification, while also staying true to Cadbury Dairy Milk’s commitment to ‘JOY’.

So we went to Africa and commissioned a visionary Ghanaian artist to paint The Big Fair Trade Picture, a 450 square foot mural made up of 10 pieces, each representing a different benefit of Fair Trade, or in other words, a piece of The Big Fair Trade Picture.

The campaign, which included OOH, transit, print and digital, showcased a piece of the mural and drove consumers online to Dairymilk.ca for a deeper experience. While there, visitors could learn about the Dairy Milk Fair Trade story by watching 60-second documentaries on each benefit. Users clicked blank sections of the mural to activate the short documentaries that we shot in Africa. The videos played in the shape of the individual mural pieces and then took on their painted form in the mural. After consumers watched all 10 videos, the Big Fair Trade Picture was fully revealed.

We also developed a promotion that asked consumers the question, “What is a fair trade for a trip for four to Ghana?” Consumers submitted trades and voted on other trades that they deemed worthy of the prize. At the end of the submission phase, the top 20 trades went into a draw for the chance to win a trip for 4 to Ghana.

Why We Did It

Fair Trade is a complex economic issue that few people fully understand. Knowing this, we decided that the best way to illustrate the positive impact Fair Trade has on African cocoa farming villages was to literally illustrate it. Using art allowed us to talk about a complex issue, with many moving parts, in a way everyone could understand, while the bright, bold and beautiful colours of The Big Fair Trade Picture, allowed us to stay true to the global ‘Joy’ position, and tell the story in a way only Cadbury Dairy Milk can.

What Happened

For the duration of the campaign, we averaged around 100 very creative submissions per week. People suggested things like 5,000 pairs of hand-made mittens, an autographed Mickey Mantle Baseball, $1,000 worth of youth soccer gear, 6 months of community service in an old folks home, even a 1995 jaguar. Yes, you read that correctly, a JAGUAR. Dairymik.ca was viewed almost 280,000 times by over 54,000 people, gained 2,500 fans on our Facebook page and because of this beautiful and educational campaign, thousands of Canadians learned a little more about the big fair trade picture.