Cadbury Celebrations is back with tech-driven ad for Raksha Bandhan

After creating customised messages with Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan in the past, the brand is now connecting siblings through Bluetooth technology.

This Raksha Bandhan, Cadbury Celebrations is not only bringing siblings closer, but also ensuring that they stay physically together. In another innovative use of technology, the leading chocolate gifting brand has created a Bluetooth-enabled rakhi that will ensure the siblings spend the day together.

The campaign #ConnectedRakhi, created by Ogilvy India, builds on the insight that during childhood, siblings would spend much more time together. But as they grow older and other priorities take over, they tend to spend very little quality time with each other. The brand’s latest innovation urges siblings to spend the festival together, just as they did during their childhood.

“As kids, we would spend the whole day together. There was nowhere to go or nothing else to do. But now, siblings just come together for rakhi and go away to tend to other priorities. Once we identified this problem, we thought of a modern solution for it. Then it was only about finding a way to execute it,” says Sukesh Nayak, chief creative officer, Ogilvy India.

The product’s packaging has a QR code on it to download the app. Here, sisters can upload a voice clip of their brother's promise to spend the day together. Once she ties the connected rakhi on her brother’s arm, which is paired with her phone, if he moves away from her or tries to leave, her phone will play the brother’s audio recording. The recording, where he promised to spend the day with her, will keep playing until he comes back to her.

Anil Viswanathan, vice president - marketing, Mondelez India, in a press release, said, “Signifying the precious link between siblings, Rakhi has remained a special festival for Mondelez India. Our insight for the campaign was simple- with daily routines dictating our quality of life, the time spent with siblings decreases. With #ConnectedRakhi, we wanted to take the conventional sweet gifting a step ahead with the integration of technology. The vision was to encourage siblings to get more facetime at the back of personalization at scale. Delivering on Cadbury Celebrations’ proposition of ‘Kuch Achha Ho Jaaye, Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye’, the campaign is an effort to remind our consumers of the joyful moments shared, inspiring siblings to spend Raksha Bandhan together.”

Ogilvy also worked on the technology and design for the campaign. Nayak mentions two challenges the team faced while creating the ad. “First, we had to think of an idea like this. And then came the challenge of putting it all together. We had to marry the three things - Bluetooth, the rakhi and the app. Fortunately, we soon discovered someone who could make it happen.”

The limited edition #ConnectedRakhi is available on Amazon and Flipkart.

Raksha Bandhan is an important festival for Cadbury Celebrations. Every year, it attempts to strengthen its presence, not only through innovation, but also communication. In 2020, the year when siblings spent most of their time together locked up at home owing to the COVID pandemic, the brand highlighted this change in their relationship with its #CloserThisRakhi campaign.

Last year, it collaborated with Social Hardware, an organisation working towards providing assistive devices and rehabilitation services, to develop India’s first generatively-designed prosthetic arm for children, who have upper limb disability, to sense touch. With the #MyFirstRakhi campaign, it developed a low-cost prosthetic arm enabled with flex sensors and a vibration motor designed to let children feel touch.

“We have tried to do something meaningful that makes a difference year after year. We always want it to be more than just an ad film. It's an ongoing brief for us. And, brands that have the ability to absorb and engage the audience, will attempt these innovations,” adds Nayak.

Cadbury has been putting technology to best use for its campaigns. Last year, it used artificial intelligence (AI) to generate customised wishes for Raksha Bandhan. With this, brothers could generate a video where actor Hrithik Roshan would say a personalised message for their sisters. The technology manipulated Roshan’s digital image, where his mouth movements and voice were customised for each name.

For Diwali, the brand created an ad promoting local businesses. Titled ‘Not Just a Cadbury Ad’, it created a hyper-personalised ad, featuring actor Shah Rukh Khan. Using generative AI technology, the ad, conceptualised by Ogilvy India with Wavemaker as the media partner and Rephrase.ai as technology partner, allowed local small businesses to make India’s biggest brand ambassador their own brand ambassador. It bagged The Titanium Lion Award at this year’s Cannes Festival, a first for the country.

“Technology, by itself, is meaningless. But with a heart, it's fabulous. Technology must not be for the sake of it alone, but should make a difference to the life of consumers,” Nayak mentions.