Meerkats’ dirty dancing for Wedel’s 160th anniversary

Wedel, Polish flagship brand of confectionary that was established in 1851, celebrates its 160th birthday this year.  Since 1999 Wedel brand and its main factory in Warsaw has belonged to the British confectioner Cadbury plc. 

When Kraft Foods acquired Cadbury plc last year, the European Commission accepted the take-over under the condition that Kraft sells Wedel, otherwise the combined Kraft-Cadbury-Wedel could have easily monopolized Polish confectionary market.  In June 2010 it was announced that Japanese Tokyo-based conglomerate Lotte Group (the 3rd biggest chewing gum manufacturer in the world) purchased Wedel’s confectionary operations from Kraft Foods to establish its presence in the European market. 

Wedel's bitter chocolate in 160th birthday's vintage packaging

In September 2010 a new company called E. Wedel Sp. z o.o. (limited company) was separated from Cadbury and taken over by Lotte.  As a part of Wedel brand’s 160th birthday celebrations a special limited series of the most popular Wedel products in vintage packaging has been launched – available only for 2 months. 

Wedel's products in vintage packaging available for 160th brand birthday

Additionally Wedel has just started a new major advertising campaign linked with the 160th birthday celebrations. Surprisingly the brand continues its Factory of Pleasure format which is a carbon copy of Cadbury’s A GLASS and a HALF FULL PRODUCTION.  In Wedel’s new TV ad, that has been also heavily promoted at YouTube, a bunch of meerkats take a great pleasure out of performing a Dirty Dancing-like arrangement…

The new ad made its debut on YouTube in the end of December 2010 and by now it has garnered over 145 000 views.  The image campaign has been quickly followed by a consumer promotion – a lottery in which consumers who bought any of Wedel’s products and send a text message have a chance to win 160 000 PLN as the main prize and several other prizes.

Wedel has been also very active in social media – Facebook,  YouTube  and Fotka.pl – which are employed to communicate and constantly remind about the consumer promotion.

Wedel's Facebook announcement of its consumer promotion