Sweet Education
New year and a new provocation from one of Citizen Good’s favourite brands @Tony’s Chocolonely.
To kick off 2022, they’ve launched a bold social marketing campaign to raise awareness of the systemic issues in the chocolate industry including child slavery and inequality.
So, what’s their latest message? Well, it’s 3-fold and they’ve launched 3 bars – each with a different conversation starter.
- What does inequality mean to you?
- What does injustice mean to you?
- What does inhuman mean to you?
Pretty arresting stuff to see in the sweet treats and chocolates aisle of the supermarket!
To see the full story, you must open the packet. We had the perfect permission to taste-test not one but all three varieties! It was great to see that they not only relate the issues within the chocolate industry’s supply chain, but they also bring it to life to how these issues impact society in the UK. Injustice, unfortunately, is well beyond the cocoa plantations. In the UK & Ireland, over 1.5 million people live at risk of poverty and social exclusion, facing more obstacles to take part in society, including a right to participate in politics.
The campaign is called Conversation Bars. They have optimised the packaging to inform and educate shoppers not just in relation to chocolate but also to think more broadly about these big social challenges.
Tony’s Chocolonely are not short of causing a rumble in their purpose-led approach to marketing. Last Christmas, they got chocolate fans thinking hard because on Day 8 of their advent calendar, the 8th window was empty.
Why? They wanted to draw attention to the inequalities of the chocolate industry. In Ghana and the Ivory Coast, at least 1.56 million children work under illegal conditions because the price being paid for cocoa is too low. Worst still, at least 30,000 adults & children are forced to work. To drive that message of inequality home in a memorable way, there was a missing piece of chocolate behind window number 8. Echoing their regular chocolate bar which is made up of unequal pieces.
Lest you think consumers were short changed, other days on the advent calendar had double. In fact, we counted 25 chocolates in the calendar for 24 days. That’s the benefit of an unequally divided calendar!
Check out their conversation starters – What’s your favourite conversation starter here?
If you are interested to find out more – see another Citizen Good article on Tony’s Chocolonely Child slaves -the true cost of chocolate
