It is not the first time that I have been truly intrigued by an advert released by Cadbury. Be it the commercials celebrating poignant occasions of birthdays, anniversaries, festivals, or important life events such as promotions or retirements, Cadbury has always struck a sweet chord with its audience. Its commercials encouraging the multitude to support local stores and small businesses during Diwali, extending a vote of thanks to people working at the operations level, or showing the progress made by women in our country by drawing parallelism between the India of 1994 and 2021 have always touched me deeply and served as more than a food for thought.
Being a 21st-century kid, I did not have the opportunity to watch the original Cadbury advert launched in 1994 on the stereotypical big fat television of that era. But when I saw the 2021 novel advertisement on the little glossy rectangle of my mobile phone, it was something that seemed spot on to me, leading to a big smile on my face which surprisingly grew even bigger only after I watched the old version it was recreated from.
The new advert beautifully captures the constant dramatic shift towards feminism in India through gender-swapping. The 1990s were a time period when the Indian women’s cricket team was fabricating an illustrious history worth acknowledging but hardly drew any attention due to the age-old propagation of the notion that cricket is a gentleman’s game. Due to cultural stereotypes that some games can be exciting only when a specific gender plays them or that some games are only meant for a particular gender, watching women cricketers play has been an unusual sight for all. Since women playing cricket have never garnered significant attention and their matches did not attract many spectators, they receive little coverage in the mainstream media. Most Indian schools did not and still do not have bats and balls reserved for girl students on the sports ground, and consequently, we rarely hear about the formation of women cricket teams.
Cricket is indubitably one of those sports which has the power to unite a nation and knows no gender. In a country like ours where cricket is treated like a religion and male cricketers are worshipped as gods, more often than not we forget to hail our cricket goddesses. When men in blue score a century, it’s a festival of jubilation. But when our women cricketers set new records or make new ones, we are not even aware of their achievements, forget about actually acknowledging them! For instance, very few people know about Jhulan Goswami becoming the all-time highest wicket-taker or about Mithali Raj holding the record of playing most consecutive matches for a team in Women’s ODI cricket, so forth and so on. We forget to applaud them for we rarely keep track of new developments in women’s cricket.
The new advert doesn’t just celebrate women in cricket but applauds women in all sports. Likewise, the cricket stadium doesn’t just reflect the sports arena where women are progressing. It depicts all the other professional fields as well where they are hitting sixes and proving their mettle! The phrase ‘#GoodLuckGirls’ flashing in the end perfectly sums up their support for women in sports as well as everywhere else. Not only does the advertisement imply the change that is taking place in the landscape of sports but also depicts how men are beginning to be proud and happy of their beloved women giving their best shot in respective professional spheres and not being intimidated by their success.
The 1994 advert was, in fact, way more progressive in an era like the 1990s. The portrayal in the old commercial of how the woman steps off to the cricket field, making her way through the umpire, pouncing with joy, and embracing her beloved in a public domain was reflective of the subtle progression towards women empowerment and revolution gradually taking off in the India of 90s.
Thus certainly, Cadbury impeccably observes and foresees the changes taking place in society. Such adverts broadcasted countrywide help educate the masses about the revolution underway. It might be a marketing gimmick for the multinational company but comes off as endearing to its Indian viewers. The netizens loved revisiting the familiar yet remodelled campaign and shared their views and consequent emotions across all social media platforms.
The new advert has successfully won over a million hearts and cybersurfers can be seen wholeheartedly appreciating Cadbury’s simple yet appealing storytelling. The latest commercial wonderfully breaks gender stereotypes and celebrates women. Belonging to Gen Z, the background jingle ‘Kuch khaas hai’ (which means there is something special) is very new to my ears and indeed extraordinarily special for all Gen X and Gen Y Indian folks out there.