Cadbury uses GenAI to place customers in classic ads

Cadbury has launched a new GenAI-powered tool named “My Cadbury Era” which places users in classic Cadbury posters as part of a campaign celebrating its 200-year heritage.

Building on the “Yours For 200 Years” activity, which celebrates Cadbury’s anniversary and its long-standing relationship with the British public, VCCP’s digital experience agency Bernadette has created the free tool to let customers place themselves at the heart of the brand’s history.

Users upload a selfie and select their era from one of seven classic Cadbury ads, along with options to determine how they would like to be represented, and the tool then recreates the image featuring their likeness. Participants are also automatically entered into a prize draw to win £200.

The activation is being supported by a social and D/OOH campaign, and Cadbury has also partnered with influencers to help demonstrate how the tool works and share their posters.

Cadbury marketing director Phil Warfield said, “We started off our celebrations by asking the public to go into their family albums and share photographs of themselves with Cadbury over the years. Now we are inviting the public to be a part of our posters, developing a tool that celebrates not only the rich heritage of Cadbury but also our relationship with the public.”

Using AI image inference on the original archive ads, and combining the power of Stable Diffusion with the creativity and expertise of the team who developed the tool allowed for the reimagining of historic posters in a way that felt true to Cadbury.

VCCP and Cadbury worked with an LGBTQ+ charity and members of Mondelẽz International’s diversity and inclusion network to ensure the activation is as inclusive as possible.

The campaign was brought to life with the help of VCCP’s global content creation studio Girl&Bear with media led by Publicis Media, owned channels by Elvis, and PR and influencer content led by Ogilvy.

Bernadette chief design officer Jonny Goodall said: “My Cadbury Era is a product of human design and creativity which was boosted by GenAI technology to make something that wasn’t previously possible – using cutting edge techniques to bring something from the archives up to date and into a modern environment.”