History & Marketing Strategies of 5 Star Brand

Company: 5 star
Founded by: Cadbury

5 star chocolate was launched by Cadbury in India during the year 1969. It is a chocolate bar made with a delicious mix of smooth chocolate, caramel and nougat. Its pack is also distinctively decorated with a golden wrapper and five stars indicating the name of the popular chocolate.

There are different varieties of the chocolate available in the Indian market – some of the popular ones are Crunchy, Fruit and Nut, 5 Star 3D and Chomp. 

How it all Started

The popular 5 Star Chocolate brand launched by Cadbury in India has successfully completed five decades of its existence in the country. Emboldened by its consistent performance, the current owners, Mondelez International, has even decided to make the brand international by launching it in other countries.

Cadbury, the company who launched the 5 star chocolate in the 1960s, has always occupied a premier position worldwide in the chocolate and confectioneries category. Holder of multiple Royal Warrants from the Queen of England, Cadbury was established by John Cadbury in 1824. He was a tea, coffee and drinking chocolate seller plying his wares at the Bull Street in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

His business proved quite profitable, so he up-scaled his investment and established a factory in Bridge Street to produce a variety of cocoa and chocolate drinks. 

His company primarily catered to the affluent section of the society, as the cost of production was quite high. John’s brother Benjamin also joined the business in 1847 and in 1849 they displayed their first chocolate bars at a trade fair in Birmingham.

While the credit for making the first ever chocolate bar goes to Cadbury’s competitor, Fry, from the city of Bristol, both of them were instrumental in making the currently common product a successful variety of chocolate-based sweet in the market. 

The Road to Success

The 1990s saw the rapid expansion of Cadbury through a combination of astute leadership and introduction of new innovative products in the chocolate confectionery market. Dairy Milk and Bourneville Cocoa was two of its early products that brought fame and commercial success to the company.

Dairy Milk Chocolate was the first of its kind with a higher proportion of milk as one of its primary ingredients. This was also the first instance of a company mass-producing milk chocolate. In 1919, J. S. Fry and Sons, the main competitor of Cadbury decided to merge, resulting in an amalgamation of many well-known chocolate and confectionery brands.

By the 1930s, chocolate became affordable for most of Britain’s population and Cadbury products accounted for the majority of the increased revenues earned with the increased consumption. 

Cadbury entered the Indian market in the year 1948 and was initially selling imported chocolates. In the same year, the company was formally incorporated by the newly independent country. Cadbury soon became the premier chocolate and confectionery selling company of India & currently holds over 70% market share in the category. With six manufacturing units in the country and regional offices located at many major Indian cities, Cadbury has established a firm foothold in the country offering several popular brands like Dairy Milk, 5 Star Chocolate, Gems, Eclairs, Bournvita and Oreo among others.

 

Marketing Strategies and campaigns

The brand is very popular in the country owing to its unique blend of ingredients imparting a distinctive taste to the product along with its attractive price points, making it accessible to all economic categories. 5 star chocolate also works as a loving gift to children and teens because of its attractive packaging and being light on the pocket.

All these traits make the brand one of the longest-running and successful ones being launched and managed by Cadbury in the country. Its popularity has even led the product to be launched in other countries like Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia and Philippines.

Cadbury operates in five major categories in the Indian confectionery market. They are Chocolate Confectionery, Biscuits, Beverages, Candy and Gums. The company has established popular brands in all the mentioned categories with most of them being household names in the country. This was achieved with a clever combination of high-quality yet affordable products and impactful media advertisements. Some notable media advertisement campaigns of the 5 star chocolate brands are discussed below. 

Ramesh & Suresh Series

This television advertisement series depicting two brothers – Ramesh & Suresh – getting entangled in different kinds of hilarious settings while “getting lost” in the exquisite taste of 5 star chocolate has created a huge stir among the Indian masses. Since 2006, these ads furthered cause of the already strong 5 star brand & were successful in positioning the product as per the intentions of the management & the requirement of the times.

During the initial years, the brand was focusing on satisfying hunger, the sense of togetherness & the soft chewy taste. Then the brand stayed consistent towards its tagline “jo khaye kho jaye” meaning “one who consumes 5 star gets lost in its taste” for a number of years & projected the same through the hugely popular television commercial series.

“Why So Serious?” Campaign

As a fresh take on the 5 star brand, the “why so serious” advertisement released in 2015 was also quite successful in propagating the message of being happy in one’s life. In the commercial, the chocolate bar was offered to the serious ‘boss’ as a cure by a doctor & everyone around him was having a good laugh at the end.

The brand was successful in propagating the message that seriousness has plagued the lives of Indians in the modern times & uses humor & comedy to offer a “chocolate bar” cure for the malady. 

“No Hard Fillings” Internet Advertisement

This campaign was launch on the Internet in 2013, showing the brand’s recognition of the digital medium as a powerful promotional tool. In a series of ten humorous videos, different pairs of inanimate objects were shown as initially committing harmful acts on the other & offering 5 star chocolate bars with “no hard fillings”.

The sequences are meant to be comical yet putting across the message of friendship & propagating the popular bar a gift to smooth things over. The entire collection is quite impactful & succeeds in tickling the funny bones of the viewers while retaining the high recall value that is a characteristic of all advertisements of the brand. 

Conclusion

Thus, 5 star chocolate and its owner brand Cadbury have been successful in India since their launch. For the youth of India, the distinctive 5 Star Chocolate Bar is synonymous with many enjoyable moments spent with friends or family while enjoying the product. Its many variations over the five decades of its existence have proven to be successful and popular, thus adding to the longevity of the brand as a whole.

5 Star Chocolate has become synonymous with the chocolate bar product in India with hardly any competitors, thus ensuring a bright future for the brand. 

 

Related Posts:

    None Found

Was this article helpful?