The madness in this commercial gets reduced to self-indulgence on the part of the advertiser

Some amount of madness is expected from candy advertising, for sure. After all, you can't be expected to rationalise and argue with the consumers in this product category. However, ad ideas are going totally bizarre and outlandish of late. With no story to tell about the product, the creatives are going berserk with gimmicky tactics.

Cadbury Éclairs has been running a new series of commercials where the consumer's head is seen exploding into a chocolate bomb after gobbling down the thing. Chocolate blast, they call it. Not a very savoury sight, let me quickly add. In fact, it borders on the grotesque. But the advertiser will probably claim this is their way of demonstrating 'chocolate experience'. Yeah right!
 
And in their latest bomb blast version, the protagonist not only loses his head, he also slips into a psychedelic trance! The commercial features a young lad, bored and sleepy at an uncle and aunty party. The grannies torment him by pulling at his chubby cheeks, and worse, he gets glad-eyed by a totally square girl. Frustrated and pissed off, he downs a Cadbury Éclair, his head blasts like a chocolate volcano, and then the choc psychedelics take over. Of course, the special effects last only a few seconds (makers of Cadbury Éclairs would want the dosage increased, else how do they sell volumes?), and the dude returns to the humdrum world of geriatrics.
 
Shockingly dull advertising. A crime, if you ask me. To deliver such rubbish creative, given that the client would have given the ad agency a huge creative license to experiment. After all, there are no scientific features to a candy, so the product is always a great opportunity to push the creative envelope.

The chocolate bomb idea is so silly, self-absorbed and uninteresting, I would actually much rather enjoy the aunty party… the oldies look like much more fun in comparison! And that's a telling statement on the commercial. Net-net: a complete waste of an opportunity to do some great work. Madness is all very well, but the key to it is viewer entertainment, else the madness gets reduced to self-indulgence on the part of the advertiser.
 
By the way, the psychedelic lights trick would be a super idea for pushing ecstasy or coke. Hopefully the ad agency creatives were munching Cadbury Éclairs when they came up with this bomb of an idea. — Anil Thakraney