Calling TimeOut

Today, Cadbury TimeOut launches its first major campaign in three decades, ‘Calling TimeOut’ on the frustrations of everyday life by offering a tasty chocolate wafer respite.

A staple of the nation since its inception in 1992, the playful campaign aims to bring light relief as well as reach a new and younger audience of 24-45 year olds.

The bold and disruptive campaign will run for 4 weeks across DOOH, OOH and social channels Meta, Instagram, TikTok and Reddit. The predominantly OOH campaign brings life to situations from which everybody needs to Call TimeOut. Featuring large typography of ‘Argh’, ‘Busy’, ‘Meetings about Meetings’, ‘blahblahblah’, ‘crammed sweaty’ and ‘bumper to bumper’, the creative gives a sense of claustrophobic overload. This typography is juxtaposed with a purple ‘Time to Call Timeout’ roundel featuring the Cadbury TimeOut pack, highlighting the respite that Cadbury TimeOut can bring in everyday life.

In a first for Cadbury, ‘Call TimeOut’ will be appearing at high impact site the Outernet in Tottenham Court Road. This has been developed to be hyper-relevant to the environment, highlighting the particular annoyances of the busy area that might inspire Brits to Call TimeOut: from crowds and drilling, to slow walkers and loud talkers. In the dynamic central London space, the creative will be brought to life through animation and also sound design, delivered by VCCP’s global content studio Girl&Bear and a Product & Service design arm, Bernadette to give a truly immersive experience.

Programmatic OOH will also be used up and down the nation with hyper-relevant messaging. The assets are triggered by a range of everyday frustrations like heavy traffic, sweat-inducing temperatures and train delays, among others.

On Social, the creative will roll out across Meta, TikTok and Reddit and has been adapted to each channel and will target busy interest groups who could do with calling TimeOut.

Diana Mamulian,  Brand Manager Cadbury Biscuits at Mondelez International said: “For such an iconic and well loved Cadbury product, TimeOut needed a big and bold campaign to match. Built around the concept of providing that all important respite from the stresses of everyday life our striking OOH encourages the Nation to take that all important Time Out when needed… and what better way than with a Cadbury TimeOut!”

Jim Thornton, Executive Creative Director at VCCP London added: “What a dream brief - relaunch one of my favourite Cadbury products from my youth with a name that’s a gift in these noisy, hectic overwhelming times. It feels like a long time since I’ve had the privilege of working on such single-minded, impactful OOH, and a long time since I’ve had so much fun playing with a new medium like the Outernet. So a joy all round - it’s just a shame we have to call TimeOut on the project, for now at least.”

The campaign launches at the same time that Cadbury TimeOut will unveil a new look and feel packaging; with more purple than ever before.

Media has been planned and executed by Publicis Media. A PR campaign will be run by PR agency TinMan and community management will be led by Elvis.