Valentine’s Day is easily one of the noisiest moments on the advertising calendar. Brands scramble to say something about love, most saying the same thing, often louder than necessary. Yet year after year, Cadbury manages to cut through the clutter, not by shouting, but by splitting the conversation clean down the middle.
On one side is Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk, soft, emotional, vulnerable, and unafraid of romance. On the other is Cadbury 5 Star, cheeky, irreverent, and determined to poke holes in the very idea of Valentine’s Day. Together, they have built something rare: complete cultural ownership of the occasion, whether you believe in it or not.
The Comfort of Feeling Something
Cadbury Silk’s latest Valentine’s Day film once again did what the brand does best: it made you feel rooted in love, emotion, and cultural insight. Silk campaigns have a way of quietly slipping into people’s hearts. They don’t force romance. They let it unfold.
This year, the brand turned its attention to a very modern dilemma, our growing dependence on AI. While technology can help us draft messages, plan surprises, and even suggest what to say, the film gently reminded us that the biggest differentiator is feelings, and AI cannot feel. Some emotions need effort. Some feelings need courage. And some moments need to be lived, not generated.
Akshay Seth, Senior Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy says, “The world is consumed by AI. But the more interesting question was over-dependence on it. That naturally fit the Silk space, which is about emotions and matters of the heart.”
Despite evolving narratives, Silk’s emotional DNA remains unchanged. Love, as Seth points out, is the hardest emotion to sell. It has been written about endlessly. The challenge is not to talk about love, but to find a new way to talk about it. “The core remains the same,” he says. “‘Say it with your heart’ and ‘Say it with Silk’. Around that, we bring in cultural relevance or executional freshness. Sometimes it comes from storytelling, like the Penguin film. Sometimes it comes from culture, like AI this year.”
The 2025 Penguin film was a simple story of a penguin trying to express love after losing his original token of affection, it showed how a small gesture, a Silk Heart Blush, could carry enormous emotional weight. It reinforced a truth Silk has always believed in: sincerity matters more than scale.
Design plays a role here too. Valentine’s Day is a gifting occasion, and Silk understands that the product itself must feel expressive. From the Heart Pop to the iconic pink packaging, the chocolate becomes part of the message. “Consumers see it as an extension of emotion, not just a product,” Seth explains. For Silk, success goes beyond numbers. Sales matter, of course, but emotional impact matters more. If a film tugs at people’s hearts, everything else follows.
Destroying Valentine’s Day
If Silk made you feel deeply, Cadbury 5 Star made sure you didn’t take anything too seriously. For years now, the brand has built a reputation for gleefully dismantling Valentine’s Day. First by skipping it. Then by making it uncool. And now, by questioning why we celebrate it at all.
“Destroy Valentine’s Day became an extremely popular campaign,” recalls Karunasagar Sridharan, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy. “What surprised me was that the people asking about it most weren’t young audiences. They were uncles,” he adds.
As a joke, Sridharan would say he’d disrupt Valentine’s Day again just so he could destroy it once more. That joke slowly turned into a creative north star. Each year, the brand escalated the idea instead of repeating it. “When an idea becomes iconic, the pressure builds,” he admits. “But we consciously avoid repeating ourselves. The goal is to surprise, not to recycle,” he explains.
This year’s campaign did exactly that. By briefly convincing audiences that 5 Star would ‘restore’ Valentine’s Day, the brand flipped expectations before landing its punchline. Armed with historical facts and signature satire, it stayed true to its irreverent tone while evolving the narrative. The breakthrough came when Sridharan found historical facts about the origins of Valentine’s Day. “It was too good to ignore,” he says.
Behind the scenes, the process is anything but conventional. Meetings are filled with conversations, from which uncles to cast in a film to debating which scientists could help erase Valentine’s Day, from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Nambi Narayanan. The logic is simple: if the room is laughing, the audience will too.
And surprisingly, it worked commercially. February was never a strong month for 5 Star, but digital-first Valentine’s Day campaigns have consistently driven spikes in both popularity and sales. This year, restraint was part of the strategy. No over-the-top on-ground activations. Sridharan says, “For a brand that stands for ‘Do Nothing,’ that felt like a powerful statement. Why bother celebrating it when even its creator didn’t?”
Two brands, one smart strategy
From the outside, it may look like a happy accident. Romance on one side, rebellion on the other. But as Nitin Saini, Vice President – Marketing, Mondelez India, explains, this contrast is intentional.
“We view Valentine’s Day not as a single emotion, but as a spectrum of consumer moods. Silk celebrates emotional expression, while 5 Star offers a humorous, counter-cultural alternative. By allowing each brand to remain authentic, we connect more meaningfully across mindsets,” he says.
The broader cultural backdrop supports this dual play. According to a 2026 consumer study by Hansa Research Group, Valentine’s Day is far from fading, with 76% of respondents saying the occasion remains relevant to them and 62% reporting that their interest has increased over the past three to five years. Nearly 71% plan to spend this year, and chocolates and confectionery rank among the top purchase categories at 52%. More tellingly, 54% say Valentine’s Day campaigns strongly influence their purchase decisions, underscoring that the occasion remains not just emotionally charged, but commercially potent.
The collaboration between Ogilvy and Mondelez plays a crucial role here. Built on mutual respect and a clear understanding of brand guardrails. Saini says, “ By allowing each brand to remain authentic to its personality, we avoid forcing a single narrative and instead connect more meaningfully with consumers across mindsets.” Saini emphasises, “This year, both Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk and Cadbury 5 Star stand out for very different but equally defining reasons.”
For Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk, the campaign around AI is particularly significant because it responds to a very contemporary tension, the ease of technology versus the effort of genuine human expression. By encouraging people to choose personal, heartfelt effort over automated convenience, the campaign reinforces Silk’s long-standing belief that love requires courage. It keeps the brand culturally relevant while staying deeply rooted in its emotional core.
For Cadbury 5 Star, ending its war against Valentine’s Day marks a defining moment in the brand’s journey. After years of satirising the occasion, the brand’s decision to temporarily “restore” Valentine’s Day is both unexpected and true to its irreverent personality. It allows 5 Star to evolve its humour without abandoning its ‘Do Nothing’ philosophy, proving that the brand can shift the narrative while still staying unmistakably itself.”
For Silk, the truth is sincerity. For 5 Star, it is irreverence. And for Cadbury as a whole, it is inclusivity. Whether you are writing love notes, overthinking texts, or rolling your eyes at the whole occasion, there is a Cadbury film that speaks your mind.
