Cadbury Worm Controversy

·        The Cadbury’s managing director addressed consumer concerns with following key messages.

·        Infestation is storage linked problems.

·        It is safe to eat Cadbury chocolates.

·        Consumers must exercise the same care in purchasing a chocolate as they would when buying any food items.

·        Cadbury announced significant steps to restore consumer confidence.

Implementation of action

Internal Action

·        Letters from MD to Employees.

·        Employees were asked to go the market and check for themselves.

·        Series of town hall meeting were held.

·        Regular E-mails updates.

External Action

·        Packaging

·        Project Vishwas

·        Two advertisements featuring AMITABH BACHCHAN.

·        Media conference

·        Platform of BQC (Bournvita Quiz Competition)

·        Retail monitoring and educational program

·        Toll-free numbers and E-mails to retailers.

They called the project Vishwas (TRUST) which entailed.

Project Vishwas:

Cadbury was losing on its sales and also reputation was being hampered. So, recovering from this type of situation was a challenge for Cadbury. In the month of October only Cadbury launched Public Relations (PR) campaign ‘Vishwas’ which was an education initiative covering 190,000 retailers in key states.

Project Vishwas a three-pronged program that addressed the trade, consumers, media and employees. The project incorporated the following measures:

For Trade:

A retail monitoring and education program was launched in which quality checks at over 50,000 retail outlets and educated 190,000 wholesalers and retailers was done regarding storage requirements.

A press ad regarding ‘Facts about Cadbury’ was also published by Cadbury nationally in 55 trade publications which were about channel members taking remedial measures in the company.

Posters and leaflets on the issue were also distributed to retailers, encouraging them to share them with consumers.

Cadbury also linked the trade with response cell through a toll-free number and an email id to let them contact the company directly.