Description
2025 - Clio Awards - Grand Winner
5-Star chocolate's long-running "Eat 5-Star. Do Nothing." campaign is well-known for its counterculture take on the world. For several years now, the brand has been devising unusual ways to help 5-Star fans escape the ‘cringiness’ that surrounds Valentine’s Day and ‘do nothing’ instead. The campaigns have been massively popular, so much so that the 5 Star V-Day campaign has become an annual tradition that netizens look forward to. The popularity of past campaigns stands testament to the fact that there are thousands of people who find the day insufferable and would do anything to skip it - so we decided to do something about it.
We performed a ‘time travel’ experiment where passengers who hate Valentine’s Day successfully skipped the entire day, in just one minute. How? They boarded a vessel which crossed the International Date Line between American Samoa and Samoa at exactly 11:59 pm on 13 February 2024 (American Samoa Time), thereby skipping directly to 12:00am on 15 February - the local time on the other side. The entire operation was live-streamed to millions of viewers, and the campaign rapidly became the hottest topic across social media platforms, reaching over 230 million users, with 1 million+ users reposting the launch video.
While other chocolate brands run Valentine’s Day promos and offers, Cadbury 5 Star has been taking the opposite stance and mocking the hype around the occasion. Last year’s campaign was flooded with comments from users who felt the same way about Valentine’s Day and wished to skip the cringe. So we took their comments quite literally. We selected people who commented on our videos last year and helped them literally skip the entire day this time around.
We worked with partners in several countries to orchestrate the unusual stunt. The mission included a ship in American Samoa, a camera crew with satellite internet to livestream the event from the middle of the Pacific ocean, a control room in Mumbai, two extremely popular show hosts, and several calculations and dry-runs to get the timing just right. We scanned the ‘comments’ section of our ads from last year and identified people who had complained about Valentine’s Day. We invited them to become the first people in history to skip Valentine’s Day.
Further, we invited the audience to sign up for the mission as ‘mission engineers’ who could interact with the hosts on live chat during the livestream and influence mission decisions, and 980,000 users signed up for it.
This professional campaign titled 'Erase Valentine’s Day' was published in India in May, 2025. It was created for the brand: Cadbury 5 Star India, by ad agency: Ogilvy Mumbai. This Film medium campaign is related to the Confectionery, Snacks industry and contains 2 media assets. It was submitted 6 months ago.
Credits
Advertising Agency: Ogilvy, Mumbai
Media Agency: Wavemaker, Mumbai
Client: Mondelez, Mumbai
Holding Company: WPP, Mumbai
Agency Network: Ogilvy, Mumbai
Production Company: Retro Films, Mumbai
Production Company: Colosceum Media, Mumbai
Entrant Company: Ogilvy, Mumbai
Public Relations Agency: MSL Group, Mumbai
On-ground Activation Partner: Timeslider Pvt Ltd, Mumbai
Executive Creative Director: Karunasagar Sridharan, Ogilvy
Global Chief Creative Officer: Liz Taylor, Ogilvy
Chief Creative Officer, Asia Pacific: Reed Collins, Ogilvy
Chief Creative Officer – Ogilvy India: Sukesh Nayak, Ogilvy
Chief Creative Officer – Ogilvy India: Kainaz Karmakar, Ogilvy
Chief Creative Officer – Ogilvy India: Harshad Rajadhyaksha, Ogilvy
EVP and Head of Creative Technology and Innovation: Rajneesh Bolia, Ogilvy
President and Head of Office, Mumbai and Kolkata, Account Management: Hirol Gandhi, Ogilvy
Executive Vice President: Beenu Kurup, Ogilvy
Head – Experiential Marketing: Krishnakant Mishra, Ogilvy
Partnerships & Influencers: Sai Ghatpande, Ogilvy
Management Supervisor, Creative Tech & Innovation: Dishant Malik, Ogilvy
Account Director, Creative Tech & Innovation: Vaishali Mange, Ogilvy
Copywriter: Karunasagar Sridharan, Ogilvy
Copywriter: Jugal Joseph, Ogilvy
Copywriter: Khushali Bhansali, Ogilvy
Art Director: Nishigandh Dhende, Ogilvy
Art Director: Himanshu Sonparote, Ogilvy
Art Director: Arushi Bajaria, Ogilvy
Account Executive: Priya Thakkar, Ogilvy
Account Executive: Ahana Banerjee, Ogilvy
Account Executive: Patrick Britto, Ogilvy
Account Executive: Isha Savla, Ogilvy
Director: Nitin Menon, Retro Films
Vice President, Marketing, India: Nitin Saini, Mondelez India
Category Manager, Gifting & Countlines, India: Siddharth Singh, Mondelez India
Senior Brand Manager: Shikha Agrawal, Mondelez
Senior Brand Manager, Gifting, Chocolates, India: Arpita Kalubarme, Mondelez India
Consumer Experience Manager, India: Yash Desai, Mondelez India
Consumer Experience Manager, India: Manthan Shah, Mondelez India
Consumer Experience Lead, India: Anjali Krishnan, Mondelez India
Digital Experience Lead: Thomas Oommen, Mondelez
Chief Client Officer & Office Head, West East & North: Shekhar Banerjee, Wavemaker
General Manager: Naina Shewakramani, Wavemaker
Client Lead: Nikhita Arora, Wavemaker
Head – Digital Transformation and Data: Satish Rajamani, Wavemaker
Director Innovation, IMC: Chintan Thakker, Wavemaker
Manager, IMC: Navneet Kabra, Wavemaker
Delivery Leader: Apeksha Dhuri, Wavemaker
Associate Business Director Digital Planning: Puneet Thakker, Wavemaker
Group Head Owned & Earned Experiences: Prathik Shetty, Wavemaker
Executive IMC: Kashish Davda, Wavemaker
Media Team: Swapnil Shah, Wavemaker
Media Team: Priyanka Joshi, Wavemaker
Media Team: Rupesh Shah, Wavemaker
Media Team: Shreya Mishra, Wavemaker
Media Team: Sabera Kapasi, Wavemaker
Media Team: Dhaval Pawar, Wavemaker
