For Cadbury’s 200th Anniversary, we applied the “glass and a half” concept across an extensive, year-long project, including a launch ad, scalable branding, multiple campaigns, and packaging. The overall campaign highlighted the deep, personal connection the British public has with Cadbury. Our design work was integral, ranging from templates for a personalizable retro ad app and illustrations for historically inspired Dairy Milk bars to packaging collaborations with Alzheimer’s Research UK. A simple visual coincidence—the number ‘200’ discovered within the John Cadbury signature—was used to tease and launch the 12-month campaign.

As part of the year of celebration, Cadbury released a limited edition Dairy Milk range, inspired by some of the most iconic packaging designs from their rich archive. VCCP were asked to create a campaign and this beautiful range of posters was the result, using artists known for their work in the appropriate style and era. Girl&Bear design assisted in the campaign by creating the templates for the artists to follow, and advised on (and in some cases created) typography.

To wrap (pun intended) it all up, 2 of our designers were commissioned to create illustrations for the 1990s and 2000s bar.

As an extension of the Historical Bars campaign, Cadbury and The Alzheimer’s Society partnered with VCCP and Girl&Bear Design to create a package in the form of Memory Bar Boxes, thousands of which were sent to people living with dementia and their loved ones to help support conversations about fond memories from the past. Using the bars to enable cognitive response and revive long term memory amongst them.

The “My Cadbury Era” campaign, a collaboration with our digital sister agency Bernadette, invited the public to co-create and reimagine the brand’s heritage. Instead of a traditional retrospective, the campaign used Gen-AI technology to let people place themselves within vintage Cadbury posters. VCCP formed a specialized, cross-functional team, including our designers, technologists, DE&I consultants, and legal experts. We worked closely with them to deliver the working poster design templates that housed the AI generator, successfully blending human creativity with new technology.