How Ogilvy Malaysia Turned Cadbury's 'Made to Share' Packs Into a Live Theatre Performance

Cadbury Malaysia's latest iteration of the global 'Made to Share' platform took the brand's distinctive packaging off the shelf and onto the stage. Created by Ogilvy Malaysia, the 'Made to Share Café’ transformed the packs' familiar grid design into a live theatre performance, using transparent LED technology and real-life actors to tell a relatable story of friendship in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

In this interview with LBB’s Sunna Coleman, CCO Graham Drew, copywriter Rudy Tan and senior art director Jing Han Liew take us behind the scenes on marrying tech with live performance, and reveal how they pulled off the ambitious activation despite it sitting outside the brand's original scope and budget.

LBB> Tell us about how the idea for the ‘Made to Share’ café came about.

When I first saw the ‘Made to Share’ (MTS) packaging designs from VCCP London, like most people, I was blown away by the simplicity of it. The strategy part of my brain was also swooning at the insightful translation of Cadbury’s brand essence of ‘Generosity’. The brief we gave ourselves was how to do something different with something already so great.

The brief was creating localised executions of the MTS template, on-pack executions and social content. The grids set up these insightful friendship moments that are so witty because they are so relatable, like micro-dramas captured on a pack.

That was the penny-drop thought. Given that the MTS packs are a storytelling device, what if we treated them like storyboards? Linking a bunch of them all together could create a whole narrative arc.

LBB> Why was a live theatre performance the right strategy for this particular campaign?

Originally we planned to create social films using the MTS grids, linking them together almost like a retro school comic strip (because everything is retro right now). That then evolved into the idea of live-action films, with the grids animating with the action, almost like subtitles.

“So it plays out, like a play… then let’s make it an actual play,” we thought. Doing it live, IRL, felt like a more authentic means by which to demonstrate Cadbury’s belief that generosity is often hiding in plain sight. Plus it was a scary thought as we had no idea where to start and Graham always says ‘scary is good’.

Scary is good, it is also scary. If you know how to do something, it’s a lot less stressful, but rarely is it memorable. Creating a live theatre performance and syncing with new tech was scary AF at the time, but we learnt loads along the way.

LBB> How did you go about actually achieving this?

Cadbury is about connection, the little moments that we give to people who matter to us. So we wanted to tell a story of friendship, a messy, unstructured, authentic story that we all could relate to. But we quickly discovered just witty lines and observations fell flat – it needed ‘an event’, some drama, because we were also putting on a show to a live audience.

A birthday, a betrayal, a move abroad, a new job, a baby even… we tried a lot.

Originally we dismissed ‘proposal’ as it felt too cliché. But when we added the personalities and the story being ‘failing to tell’, it hit the right mark of fun and eventful. We then worked with Ian Skatu and his brilliant team at local KL theatre company FSKi Works to craft the story.

LBB> How long did it take to get everything ready?

Finding the transparent LED tech was the key. We knew it existed, but getting it imported from China, getting it cut to size, learning how to use it and getting it to actually work, all within five weeks, was a huge challenge. Our production partners at Think Tank were amazing (thank you Pat Singh, as always).

LBB> What were some of the biggest challenges on this project and how did you overcome them?

Timing. We’re used to writing stories and scripts and shooting them. But performing them is a whole different ball game. You can’t fix a live performance in the edit.

Then syncing all of this with the animation of the grids, making sure the blocking was right so the right people were in the right place at the right time – over and over again. Looking back now I think, “That was really fun.” At the time, though, I was thinking, “What the hell have we got ourselves into?”

LBB> How did you build up interest and awareness for the one-day stunt? Tell us about the 360 campaign elements.

This is where I have to thank Mei Sin, Rebecca, Stacey and all the team at Cadbury Malaysia. Not in a lame ‘agency’ way, but genuinely. This activation was not in scope nor in budget. They saw our enthusiasm, trusted us to pull it off and scraped together the resources we needed.

It was a leap of faith born of a real partnership. That meant all the money went into the activation itself. All media was owned and earned. We used the Cadbury social channels, called in favours with influencers, created teaser content and brought in the Cadbury MTS truck on the ground to help pull crowds on the day.

LBB> On the day, what were reactions from the audience like and what feedback have you received?

We chose the heart of Petaling Street because we knew it had a really high footfall, especially at weekends. “WTF is this?” was most people’s first reaction. Then they stayed and watched it all play out.

You never know how people are going to react, especially with such a unique way of telling a story. But once people had that “aha” moment, they got caught up in the story and there was always a big round of applause at the end.

Don’t make ads, make entertainment. Someone much smarter than me said that a long time ago, and with the rise of the creator economy it’s never been more relevant.

LBB> Does the brand have any plans to try this in other markets following the success in Malaysia?

It’s been really well received internally. Now that we have the technology, the potential to use almost any window, in any location, to tell almost any kind of story is enormous.

‘Storytelling’ has become such an eye-roll term in our industry, but it remains at the heart of what we do. I don’t think anyone has done it quite like this before – combining brand-new technology with old-school theatre. For me, for the clients and for the team, it feels like a genuinely new direction and a big win.

LBB> Any other interesting behind-the-scenes insight you can share?

On the day, it was full-on panic. The ambient light was killing the visibility of the screen, the rehearsal blocking no longer worked in the actual space and we had to rewrite a whole section of the script. Then, just before the first lunchtime performance, a huge truck parked directly in front of us for over an hour. I will never complain about a late-night edit suite again. With live activation, you have to be agile.

On that note, I have to give a special shout-out to Ben, our producer, and Allen, our animator. While everything seemed to be breaking, they rescued the day more than once. Oh, and it also decided to thunderstorm at 2.30pm, just as we’d gathered the biggest crowd of the day.

Above: Rudy Tan, Jing Han Liew, Graham Drew