Easter Eggs-Travaganza: The Greatest Chocolate Adverts Of All Time
Easter holds a curious place in the holiday calendar. If you think about it, every other major holiday has a pretty clear set of associated activities.
For the atheists among us, Christmas is for giving presents and eating too much, Halloween is for house parties and impersonating celebrities and St Patrick’s Day is for pretending you have Irish relatives.
But for the non-religious amongst us, what are you meant to do for Easter weekend? Visit your in-laws? Tour a National Trust property? It’s all desperately unclear.
However, the one thing we can agree defines a secular Easter is chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. And if your friends and relatives haven’t already inundated you with choccies of every size and variety, the world of video advertising is there to remind you just how delicious they can be.
Seeing as Easter is, well, the Christmas of chocolate ads, we’ve gathered together a selection of the tastiest chocolate ads around, broken down into bite-size categories. Bon Appetit!
Most Luxurious
Winner – Lindt: ‘Do You Dream In Chocolate?’
Chocolate ads are famously a pretty decadent affair, and Swiss chocolatier Lindt might be the classiest of the bunch.
Posing the strangely existential question ‘Do you dream in Chocolate?’, this early 2000’s spot presents rolling rivers of rich, luscious chocolate, being spooned across expensive silverware by a team of French chefs. While we sincerely doubt that’s how the chocolate is actually made, we’ll be damned if it doesn’t look delicious.
Strangest Setting
Winner – Ferrero Rocher: ‘The Ambassador Party’
‘The Ambassador’s Party’ may sound like the title of a forgotten Martin Amis novel, but it’s actually a 1990’s spot for Ferrero Rocher.
Ferrero Rocher has always marketed itself as the Dom Perignon of the chocolate world, and this ad really plays up that perception. Set in an ambassador’s residence, our charming host delights his guests with a gold-leafed truffle pyramid, who shower him with multilingual compliments.
This spot also wins the award for looking most like a deleted scene from ‘House Of Cards’.
Most Specific
Winner – Yorkie: ‘The Trucker’
A change of gears now, moving from decadent toffs to the blokiest chocolate bar of them all: the Yorkie.
Appropriately for a confectionary which once proudly marketed itself as ‘Not For Girls’, this spot shoots for blunt masculinity. It does this by proposing the Yorkie as an ideal treat for long-haul truckers. I’m not kidding.
If the bizarre country-western jingle isn’t enough for you, you can also enjoy how much our trucker star resembles Javier Bardem’s character from ‘No Country For Old Men’. Seriously, it’s weird.
Most Objectifying (Male Edition)
Winner – Aero Bubbles: ‘Melt’
The ‘chocolate-as-sex’ metaphor is a pretty common trope in chocolate advertising, but few ads go for it more directly than Aero Bubbles’ ‘Melt’.
Starring model Jason Lewis, a towel and very little else, the spot is about as subtle as a ‘Carry On’ film.
Most Objectifying (Female Edition)
Winner – Cadbury: ‘Bath’
Supporting Flake (supposedly the “crumbliest, flakiest chocolate in the world”), this ridiculously cheesy spot finds a mostly nude woman having a delicious chocolate bar in the bath.
That’s right, in the bath. Like normal humans do all the time, because hot, soapy water and milk chocolate are definitely an ideal combination.
Funniest Spot
Winner – Snickers: ‘Grocery Store Lady’
This was a difficult toss-up, with ‘Grocery Store Lady’ only narrowly beating out Snickers’ similarly excellent Super Bowl spot ‘The Brady Bunch’.
But this spot takes the prize because its concept is just so silly, simple and brilliant. There’s something beautifully unsettling and Halloween-ready about the ‘Grocery Store Lady’ herself and the reveal is just perfect.
Keep up the good work, Snickers.
Most Unexpectedly Iconic
Winner – Cadbury: Gorilla
If you had predicted twenty years ago that a Gorilla playing drums to Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air Tonight’ would become one of the famous ads of all time, someone might have had you committed.
Such is the all-consuming, reality-bending power of Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ – an ad so perfect in its absurdity that it captured a whole generation of ad-watchers. Even though we’re nearing ten years since the spot’s release, the concept is still as fresh and funny as forever, and spawned some further excellent work from Cadbury and a recent parody from Aldi.
