'Mastercard lost and Cadbury won The Brits': how Cadbury used Twitter to promote the brand

Cadbury pre-prepped for days ahead of The Brit Awards to come up with ideas for tweets based on what might happen, the brand has revealed.The Dairy Milk brand is the self-declared winner of the night, with Facebook posts and tweets racking up hundreds of likes and retweets.Kate Wall, brand manager at Cadbury Dairy Milk, said: "Last night was a joyful. The James Corden film gave us a great platform going into the Brits. With careful prep and great content, we saw joy erupt around our content. The 'Bruno Cadbury image and tweet was my highpoint as it was retweeted again and again. I think Cadbury won the Brits.”Mark Boyd, founder of Gravity Road and one of the minds behind the social activity - as well as the creator of the James Corden ad, told The Drum: “Cadbury asked us to run the night. We had a strategy which was three pronged: we wanted to respect music fans, we wanted to delight them with creative that has real chart to it, and thirdly, we wanted to be relevant. We wanted to be the most topical brand out there.“Those were our three pillars, so we did pre-prep about things that might happen on the night, and things that we knew would happen from the last two days, and came prepared with assets around that.”Based on who was nominated for the Brits, Gravity Road created the names of 36 acts out of chocolate.

The chocolate picture for Bruno Mars was sent on Twitter with the words ‘well done Mars’, and on Facebook with the line ‘the only time you’ll see Cadbury’s congratulating Mars’, as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the rival chocolate brand.Boyd added: “We got in some great word-play puns built around chocolate - and One Direction lyrics - that people seemed to like. By playing with lyrics, that was something that One Direction fans liked and enjoyed.”

That's What What Makes You Beautitwirl... #1DFamily #ChocolateSongs #BRITs2014 #FreeTheJoy pic.twitter.com/GtFdP1md6g

— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) February 19, 2014

We could eat Heroes, just for one day... #BRITs2014 #FreeTheJoy pic.twitter.com/d2U1rE2hUQ

— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) February 19, 2014

Being topical was also something which Cadbury and the Gravity Road team were focussed on, Boyd explained. “We know that there would be something coming up around Pharrell’s hat, and James Corden talked about the hat, designed by Vivienne Westwood. So we tweeted ‘Pharrell and Vivienne Westwood, we take our hats off to you’, in a sort of joyful pride of the two of them.”

Because I'm Hatty... #BRITs2014 #FreeTheJoy pic.twitter.com/H9TY9SPy0F

— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) February 19, 2014

Boyd was pleased with how the social around the event was handled: “All of them really worked, and as we were watching in the control room last night we were seeing the assets we were creating very quickly being put up and being retweeted. I think it was a combination of pre-prep and then having good creative execution at the time.”The creative director of the company sat with a Mac in the centre of the room, with other team members – such as Guy, who handles the social media for Fremantle – and comedy writer Joel.Discussing how Dairy Milk stood against other brands on the night, Boyd concluded: "By my brand analysis, Mastercard lost and Cadbury's won The Brits. That would be my bold claim."