Over the past few years, we’ve learned one very important thing in marketing: CONTENT HAS TO PROVIDE VALUE. And that’s true. Nothing has changed. Educate your audience, address their problems, offer a solution, inspire them… And then someone comes along and creates a luxury handbag for a chocolate bar and suddenly, everyone is talking about it. It solves literally no problem. It probably won’t make you more productive. It won’t teach you how to become a better version of yourself. And yet, here we are, talking about it.
When did marketing become so serious?
Yes, they actually made a luxury handbag for chocolate.
As part of a new campaign, Cadbury teamed up with fashion brand LUAR to create something the market never asked for and definitely wasn’t desperately waiting for.
A handbag designed specifically to carry a large Cadbury chocolate bar. And not just any handbag.
Only a few were made, decorated with Swarovski crystals, and the whole thing was unveiled in the context of New York Fashion Week.
Was humanity desperately waiting for a chocolate handbag? Did we have a problem with the lack of luxury solutions for transporting chocolate?
Definitely not.
Did Cadbury just solve a problem?
Also no. But it did something else. It gave us a reason to talk about Cadbury.
And that’s something we often forget: marketing doesn’t have to solve a problem every single time. Sometimes, its job is simply to be a f*cking good idea.
Value doesn’t always mean useful information
We’ve started using VALUE in marketing almost as a synonym for useful information. As if the only way content can be valuable is if your audience walks away knowing something they didn’t know before.
But VALUE can also be: HAHAHA, I need to send this to Barbara.
Or: I absolutely do not need this, but I definitely want it.
Also, useful isn’t the same thing as interesting, and that’s where a lot of us get it wrong. We assume people will find something interesting simply because it’s useful. The truth is, they won’t.
The instruction manual for your dishwasher is extremely useful, but nobody has ever sent it to their best friend saying: “YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS.”
Utility has its purpose, entertainment has its purpose, aesthetics have theirs, emotion has its own. Good marketing knows which reaction it wants to create, and when.
“That makes absolutely no sense” is sometimes the beginning of a really good idea
The Cadbury handbag is such an interesting example precisely because it’s genuinely absurd. And I’m pretty sure that somewhere along the way, someone heard the idea and said it makes absolutely no sense.
What Cadbury definitely proved is that an unexpected combination can create something an ordinary chocolate ad would struggle to achieve.
It creates a story. It gives the media something to write about. It gives people something to comment on.
Maybe 2026 is the year we bring fun marketing back. Marketing that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Marketing that’s a little weird, a little unnecessary. Maybe even a little ridiculous.
Because sometimes, you really don’t need to change the world. Sometimes, you just need to sell a damn good cookie. Or a damn good chocolate bar.
