Dubble is part of the Fair Trade campaign, which ensures that farmers in developing countries, who grow crops like cocoa used in chocolate making, are paid fairly for their products.
Fair Trading and links with Comic Relief are important attributes for Dubble. The Fair Trade link helps children understand Dubble’s aim- helping Ghanaian cocoa farmers. Additionally, the fact that Comic Relief is a globally popular charity, well known by 10-16 year olds, enhances Dubble’s popularity.
The Day Chocolate Company carried out research on the target audience. They found out that the 10-16 age range was a tribal and friendship orientated age group, which knew global issues, trusted the ideas behind comic relief and understood the concept of ‘fairness,’ but were unfamiliar with Fair Trading. They chose chocolate based on brand appeal and taste. Therefore, by exploiting links with comic relief and Fair Trade the target audience would see Dubble as a popular and trusted product which aimed to increase fairness in the world.
From my market research, I wanted to find out how popular the product was, and whether any improvements could be introduced. I needed to ascertain key forms of entertainment used by 10-16 year olds so that the selling and advertising of Dubble could be more focussed. I needed to find out the proportion of average pocket money spent on chocolates, so that Dubble could be priced accordingly, and to see if people had heard about fair trading and if not, as to how to best convey the Fair Trade message. Most teenagers shopped at Safeway’s, visited the cinema often, used a varied range of media and were fairly familiar with the new product. Most spent about a £1/week on chocolate. My findings also demonstrated that Dubble is best advertised on T.V, as this was the main form of media used which, influenced teenagers when it came to buying products.
One of the T.V adverts I created was based on the nursery rhyme ‘insy winsy spider.’ The spider (Ghanaian farmer) tries to climb up a ladder. It starts to rain and the spider falls. The rain represents the unfairness of the chocolate industry and the ladder shows the progress and money received by the Ghanaian farmer. The sun, which represents Dubble, then comes out and the spider is able to climb the ladder. This shows how Dubble can change the lives of many Ghanaian farmers compared to other chocolate bars. By using a nursery rhyme already familiar to 10-16 year olds this advert will appeal to the target audience, make them see Dubble as a fun and cheeky product and make them understand the importance of fair trade.
Another advert shows a girl at her desk looking bored. It cuts to a Ghanaian girl harvesting cocoa beans with her father. It then cuts back to the school girl. The school bell goes. She shakes her school bag and an empty crisp packet drops out. She looks fed up and hungry. It cuts to the Ghanaian girl and her father. He hands over a bag of beans and gets money in return. We see a close-up of money pouring into his hands. We then go back to the first girl going into a shop and buying a Dubble bar. She leaves the shop eating the bar and looking happy. This advert will appeal to the target audience as it shows links with the third world and the concept of ‘fairness.’ It shows how ‘Dubble is Dubbly good’ as both girls are now happy.
I believe that the Dubble campaign has not been effective. At the beginning of the campaign Dubble was launched to the public through a chocolate challenge competition, on BBC News round and the Live and Kicking show, endorsed by celebrities and found in teenage magazines. However, the popularity of Dubble has fallen. Therefore, more advertising is needed, especially on TV, to make Dubble popular again and the fair trading campaign even more successful.
This evaluation shows how effective the Dubble campaign has been and how our advertising has reached Dubbles target audience.
