In light of recent criticism from consumer rights program The Checkout last week, Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate has defended its new ‘generous blocks’ campaign.
The program which aired on the ABC last Thursday featured a fictitious complaint letter from a disgruntled consumer, claiming that the new Joyville campaign was misleading consumers.
The program highlighted the fact that the Cadbury Dairy Milk Blocks range had originally been reduced from 250gms to 200gms, only for the Joyville campaign to increase the blocks by 10 percent to 220gms.
The complaint letter stated that the slight increase, or 'generous improvement' as Cadbury describes it, was a somewhat insulting attempt at compensation for the original reduction in size.
“A miserly 20 gram mitigation so soon after unceremonious stripping away 50 gorgeous grams is trumpeted as offering 10 per cent more joy — THE HIDE,” the fictitious letter said.
According to mumbrella, Cadbury defended the campaign by stating that the RRP price had not changed with the increase in size, but did not comment on the original 50gm decrease.
“In today’s climate, it is not often you see companies delivering more value to their customers and we are thrilled to be bringing more joy to Australians in any way we can,” said Julia Fraser, Kraft Foods corporate affairs manager.
“We are very proud of our ‘10% more joy’ campaign, with the majority of our blocks increasing from 200g to a new 220g pack, without a change to the recommended retail price (RRP) which is terrific value.”
Throughout the programs season, The Checkout has targeted the marketing activities of leading consumer brands and retailers, including accusing supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths of producing copycat products under their private label brands.
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