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Few campaigns have managed to win the hearts of UK females like the decade-long ‘Lighter side of life’ campaign.  Credit to Mars for the charming and witty television commercials that have seemingly captured Maltesers’ core audience, driving home the ‘lighter way to enjoy chocolate’ USP.

.   Consumers text to sign up for their – a joke sent to them via SMS.  I can certainly see the mechanic playing to today’s tepid consumer mood.  Who doesn’t need a little pick me up these days?   No purchase is necessary, rightly too, and return text messages are free.   

One of the things I admire most about the ‘Lighter campaign’ though is its gender-wide appeal, so I do wonder about the promotional reward.  Jokes are a fickle and personal thing.  Will these daily ‘giggles’ chime with the same cheeky charm that has captivated the all-encompassing female audience for so long? Is there a risk the ‘giggles’ will appear inappropriate; out-of-step perhaps with the particular humour the target market has come to associate with the brand?

Also, having often admired Maltesers’ integration of its SP with the above the line, I found myself questioning whether the brand should have worked the campaign harder to enjoy greater ‘giggle power’. Maltesers is a social brand, a brand made for sharing. With social networking at an all time high, Giggle could so easily have existed on Facebook in a much more participatory fashion. 

Consumers would have become fans to receive their daily giggles, might have offered giggles themselves, could have sent them to friends and so forth. Bolder still, we might have seen live brand experiences where consumers were asked to tell their favourite giggle jokes to camera; the results uploaded to Facebook and voted on to win say, a trip to the Montreal Comedy Festival or an appearance on Loose Women.  Brand experiences like these at multiple venues running alongside sampling activity would add another dimension to the core idea while taking the campaign to a much wider audience.

In summary, Maltesers continues to deliver consistent, compelling messages to its core audience. Giggle scores points for engaging with consumers on a different level but it could have done better; by allowing the engagement to exist in a way that delivers two-way conversation and much greater participation.

Rating - 7 out 10