Cadbury faces backlash for new chocolate bar meant to promote diversity: 'Congratulations to Cadbury for solving racism'

Cadbury U.K., along with the advertising agency Ogilvy, launched a limited-edition chocolate bar called the Unity Bar on August 15 to celebrate India's Independence Day. The bar features four types of chocolate – dark, blended, milk and white – and was meant to symbolize India standing "united in its diversity." However, some social media users think the confection missed the mark.

In 1947, India gained independence from the United Kingdom, and Cadbury launched the new bar to help commemorate the 72nd anniversary.

"India is a diverse country, with people of different castes, creed, languages, regions, religions. Everyone living together, but not always with love," Ogilvy, the global advertising agency, shared on their website. "Cadbury Dairy Milk, which is loved by everyone, wanted to send a powerful message of unity. So we worked with the brand to create the Unity Bar: India’s first chocolate made of dark, blended, milk and white chocolate—all united in one bar."

The limited-edition chocolate bar was shared on Cadbury's social media and in one of India's major newspapers, The Economic Times.

The ad drew praise for its inclusivity; despite Hindi being the most common language typically used by brands in the country that has 22 official languages, the front-page ad used different languages in different areas for their headline, which read "Sweet things happen when we unite."

However, the ad uses a Kannada headline in the Mumbai edition, a Telugu headline in the Delhi edition, and a Marathi headline in the Bengaluru edition⁠—not the official languages of these areas ⁠—which lead some to believe that the chocolate bar missed its mark.

Still, many were less than convinced that a candy bar could end racism.

Others, however, have come to the defense of Cadbury, and acknowledge that the chocolate bar was not meant to end racism in the world entirely or erase the transgenerational trauma of India’s caste system.

Rubicon Guava @jasebyjason

· 20h

Read the article please this Cadbury chocolate campaign is based in India and is about addressing colourism and the caste system - not some western kumbaya message of diversity https://twitter.com/adage/status/1167085771674849282 …

Ad Age

✔@adage

Cadbury's Unity Bar promotes diversity with four different kinds of chocolate http://bit.ly/32dPN7K

Rubicon Guava @jasebyjason

Obviously the caste system isn’t going to be dismantled through chocolate lol but it’s something operating in a social-political context that has zero to do with most of us, so everyone relax...

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12:30 AM - Aug 30, 2019

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