A great example of crowd surfing – responding to the demands of your customers – or simply a smart PR stunt? You can take your pick following today’s announcement by Cadbury that it is bringing back the frankly rather dull Wispa chocolate bar, on a permanent basis, following ‘pleas made by fans on social networking sites.’ Maybe the groups championing the return of Wispa on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo were genuinely motivated by a desire to revive what Cadbury would have us believe is an 80s icon … or it might simply be the case that brand owners such as Cadbury are starting to get the hang of this social networking thing. They certainly understand the PR game, as demonstrated by the fact that most of the national press chose to run the Cadbury announcement as a news item.
Cadbury was also the company behind the drumming gorilla ad, which became one of last year’s most popular virals. The success of the gorilla as a viral phenomenon was driven, in part, by the Fallon digital team, which distributed numerous apparently ‘home made’ viral versions of the ad. They may not have earned too many points for transparency, but they knew how to engage the crowd. Welcome to the world of crowd surfing Mr Cadbury.