Gorilla (advertisement)
Gorilla is a British advertising campaign launched by the advertising agency Fallon London on behalf of Cadbury Schweppes in 2007, to promote Cadbury Dairy Milk brand chocolate. The centrepiece of the campaign was a 90-second television and cinema advertisement, supported by related media purchases in billboards, magazines and newspapers, as well as sponsored events and an organised internet presence (contracted out to Hyper).[1] The total cost of the campaign is estimated at £6.2 million. The central television advertisement was created and directed by Juan Cabral and starred the actor Garon Michael.
Agency
English
90 seconds
- Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate
31 August 2007 (television)
- Garon Michael
Blink Productions, London
Matthew Fone
Nicky Barnes (agency producer)
United Kingdom
£6.2 million (campaign)
Airport Trucks
The advertisement, which first appeared on British television on 31 August 2007, has since appeared in Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, among other countries, to popular acclaim. A version uploaded to the video sharing website YouTube received 500,000 page views in the first week after the launch.[2] The polling company YouGov reported that public perception of the brand had noticeably improved in the period following the launch, reversing the decline experienced in the first half of 2007.
Description[edit]
The advertisement consists of a simple, 90-second tracking shot across a music studio, with Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" playing in the background. A large gorilla sitting at a drum kit plays along with the song's famous drum fill.
Background[edit]
Gorilla formed a major part of the pitch by Fallon London to draw Cadbury Schweppes away from its established contract with Carat in 2006. Their proposal was to step away from traditional advertisements to a middle-aged, middle-class demographic. Instead, Fallon proposed the production of "entertainment pieces" aimed at a broader range of consumers and spread through viral marketing – that is, through word of mouth.[3] To this end, Cadbury ended its ten-year sponsorship of the popular soap Coronation Street.[4]
Public perception of the Cadbury brand had slipped in the 2006-7 period, following a series of public relations blunders and product recalls. In mid-2006, a leaking pipe in the company's Marlbrook factory led to 40 cases of salmonella exposure[5] and a product recall costing the company over £20 million.[6] Cadbury's failure to inform the Food Standards Agency for five months led to an additional £1 million fine from the Crown Court in Birmingham.[5][7] In the wake of the scandal, the Food Standards Agency advised the company to improve its "out of date" contamination testing procedures.[8]
Other public relations blunders in the run-up to the campaign included the distribution of chocolate Easter eggs with traces of nuts without nut allergy warnings,[7] the cancellation of a £5 million campaign for Trident chewing gum after complaints of offensive marketing material,[3] and the temporary closure of Granary Burying Ground, a historic cemetery near Boston, United States, following a treasure hunt organised as a sales promotion.[9] In mid-2007, Cadbury announced that it would be cutting around 7,500 jobs.[10] A leaked internal memorandum revealed that many of the jobs would be moved to Poland, causing an outcry from the workers' trade unions.[11][12]
Production[edit]
In the wake of these scandals, the success of Fallon's first media campaign was critical to the continued partnership with Cadbury, and the centrepiece television advertisement received the brunt of the attention. The central idea was "founded upon the notion that all communications should be as effortlessly enjoyable as eating the bar itself".[13] Fallon's Argentine-born creative director Juan Cabral, whose credits include the immensely successful Balls and Paint spots for Sony's BRAVIA line of high-definition television sets, wrote and directed the piece, acting as creative director, art director, copywriter and director. It was his directorial debut. Supporting Cabral were the senior planner Tamsin Davies, the account executive Chris Willingham, the executive creative director Richard Flintham and the agency producer Nicky Barnes. Matthew Fone was the production company producer. The actor Garon Michael was hired to fill the central role for his previous work in similar roles, having played great apes in the feature films Congo, Instinct and the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes.[14]
Gorilla took three months to produce, despite borrowing substantial parts of the set and props from a number of previous projects. The gorilla suit itself was woven from a "fur" of knotted yak hairs, with an animatronic silicone face. The face itself included 27 remote-controlled motors operated by a pair of technicians, with gross movements handled by Garon Michaels. The suit was cooled by ice-water tubing and a handheld fan pointed at the mouth between takes. While much of the suit had existed before the project, several adaptations were made, including custom-made hands for the drum sequence, foam muscle around the chest and shoulders, a new styling for the pelt, and the addition of a gold tooth, grey hairs and a studio earpiece.
Shooting took place over several days at Music Bank, the rehearsal studios in London.
The spot was filmed by the director of photography Daniel Bronks who inspired the concept when working with Juan Cabral on a previous project, and edited by Joe Guest at Final Cut, London. Post production was done by the London companies The Moving Picture Company (main body, producer Graham Bird) and Golden Square (end frame, producer Jessica Mankowitz). Sound was designed and arranged by Parv Thind at Wave Studios, London.
Sequels and remixes[edit]
In September 2007, an extended mix of the advertisement was uploaded to YouTube. It used the original 90 second advertisement, but with the video playing in a loop against the backtracking of the full-length version of Collins' "In the Air Tonight".
On 30 March 2008, Cadbury began rolling out the sequel to the Gorilla campaign. Using many of the same ideas, Airport Trucks, again written and directed by Juan Cabral, features heavily customised airport ground support equipment racing at night to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".[29]
On 5 September 2008, a second Gorilla advertisement, featuring Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", was broadcast on Channel 4 during the Big Brother 9 final. The new version paid homage to the internet mash-up artist (Javier Malagón) who remixed the original with Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart". This advertisement was immediately followed by a version of Airport Trucks with Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer".[30] In March 2009, a version of the advertisement was shown in Australia, with the gorilla playing the drums along to John Farnham's "You're the Voice". This version was heavily criticised by the Australian public because it was seen as an inferior copy of the original, and tried to make use of John Farnham's return to the public stage at the recent Sound Relief rock concert.[31]
In January 2009, a new advertisement for Cadbury Dairy Milk was launched featuring dancing eyebrows.
In September 2009, Cadbury's Dairy Milk moved to Fairtrade cocoa beans, and a new record label based on Gorilla's campaign ("A Glass and a Half") saw the advert/song Zingolo.