Drumming Gorilla Fuels Cadbury’s Rise In Sales

At the end of August Cadbury UK unveiled a £6.2m campaign for Dairy Milk featuring a gorilla playing the drum solo of Phil Collins’ track ‘In the Air Tonight’. The ad debuted during the ‘Big Brother 8 UK’ final on 31st August 2007. Bloggers have been going nuts for the 90 second clip, developed and directed by creative director Juan Cabral at Fallon London.

The spot was viewed almost 500,000 times on YouTube the week after its release. Over one hundred copies of the video have been uploaded to Youtube so far, with total views of over six million! Some excellent spoofs/remixes were created, e.g Eclipse of the Heart remix, 50 Cent remix and A skillz vs Cadbury’s Gorilla remix. Until now, no one had identified the man behind the monkey suit. Many bloggers believed it was even Collins himself! England’s Daily Mail published a story this weekend with more than you’d ever wanted to know about Cadbury’s drumming gorilla. The actor inside is …

Nope, not Phil himself but Garon Michael is the man behind the mask. And it’s not his first time as gorilla. Garon Michael has appeared as a primate in the movies Congo, Instinct and the Planet Of The Apes remake. Cadbury’s unique brand of wild rock has resulted in a nine-percent rise in sales of Dairy Milk chocolate bars. Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough said: ‘We have been amazed by the way the advert has captured the public’s imagination.’ The advert prompted the re-release of Phil Collins’s 1981 hit, now claiming the 16th position in the UK Singles Chart!

Sources: Metro UK, Daily Mail, Duncans.tv, The Independent, Agency Spy.