Almost everyone on earth loves chocolate. It’s that slow, mesmerising melt of Cadbury Dairy Milk, that clean snap of a KitKat and the glossy sheen of a Galaxy bar that speaks the language of chocolate directly to our senses.
This universality is part of what makes the branding and visual marketing of chocolate so interesting.
But, with competition rife as brands compete to capture the attention of consumers this Christmas, it’s worth discussing how they can cut through the noise with crafted ideas that are memorable and distinctive to consumers, writes Olaf van Gerwen, Founder and Global Creative Director at Chuck Studios.
Table stakes vs true distinction
Most chocolate brands lean on the usual moments of indulgence, comfort, gifting, celebrating festivities and showing affection. They opt for the image of melting, shiny and flowing liquid chocolate that triggers that old reptile brain of ours. Sugar equals fast energy and fat is fuel for survival.
But when everyone plays within the same lines, what makes their product different or more delicious than the next bar on the shelf can be diluted. Distinction comes from the story you tell about why your brand is here on earth. And how your chocolate feels, sounds and behaves on your tongue as a result of that positioning. You need to have the courage to say something no one else can.
Through our work, designing distinctive brand assets that form strong culinary identities, we have found that the chocolate category is simultaneously rich with possibility and deprived in its inability to step away from the tried and tested.
But, that doesn’t mean that brands can’t refer to existing, cultural codes. One of Cadbury’s latest ads put British legends, like Brian May and Freddie Mercury, on the wrappers of its Heroes bars. It’s both a clever gesture and there’s tons of proof that taking a nostalgic, celebrity-led approach can really resonate with audiences.
Carving out your brand identity
Branding in the chocolate world has to fight two strong forces: the universal appeal (which is good) and the visual homogeneity (which is risky). When your product category is so visually and physically similar (brown bar, chunk or slab, maybe melting, maybe swirling), you must carve out a very specific vertical – a niche, a positioning, a signature story and ditto images that make you stand out.
For example, Cadbury’s eight decades of championing the ‘glass and a half’ of milk slogan cemented their claim as the Wonkas of creaminess and generosity. It’s a story deeply rooted in product truth. Another example is KitKat. While it might not evoke the same creamy comfort as Cadbury, the moment we see its red wrapper, we’re reminded of its generation-long ask to ‘Have a Break, Have a KitKat’. Similarly, Milka emphasises that it’s made of 100% Alpine milk in a tactic that, combined with its bubbly package lettering, evokes a soft, gentle melt-in-the-mouth experience. The common thread? Their messaging stays stable; consumers come to know what you bring.
Standing apart
In recent years, dark chocolate has been the exception to this formula. Where milk chocolate trades on warmth and nostalgia, dark chocolate has leaned into sophistication, health benefits and intensity. One such example is Green & Black’s, a brand that emphasises its use of organic ingredients, from nutrient-rich soil to vanilla pods gently dried under the Madagascan sun.
Then there’s Tony’s Chocolonely, a brand that has rewritten the rules of the category entirely. Fairness, transparency and activism are not just slogans for them, they are built into the very structure of the bar. The uneven, chunky mould is a metaphor for inequality in the cocoa trade, turning a product truth into a brand code. But the chunky mould doesn’t only represent what Tony’s Chocolonely stands for. In our work with the brand to build a distinct culinary identity, we also ensured that the tension between the chunky shape and smooth textures spoke to the experience of eating it. Even the satisfying ritual of tearing open a Tony’s Chocolonely wrapper and going straight for those two extra-chunky squares on the right – which we affectionately named Neil after the OG of firsts, Neil Armstrong – joins the world between the consumer and the brand. It’s clever, memorable and completely distinctive and ownable, as Tony’s is the chunkiest bar of them all. The point of the story? That refusal to blend into the sea of sameness is what allows Tony’s Chocolonely to stand apart.
Avoiding the sea of sameness
Amidst the sea of sameness, where chocolate brands deliver the same functional experience (sugar, fat, cocoa and pleasure), the risk is falling into the trap of promoting the wider chocolate category rather than your individual brand. Every piece of communication, from the shelf to the screen, must therefore remind the consumer that ‘this is our brand.’
From our vantage point in food-brand photography, film and visual design, one truth stands out: you must show your chocolate, not just generic chocolate. Show the swirl that’s uniquely yours, the mould that no one else has, the way your bar breaks or melts or what it makes chocolate lovers do or feel. Because if your visual simply says “nice chocolate” you’ve lost a moment of distinction. It should instead say, “Ah, that’s X, the one I love.” They simply have to know it’s you.
So yes, show the melt, the flow and the sheen of cocoa and the shimmer of fat. Show all the sensory triggers that make people want a bite. But always make sure the way you show your chocolate builds neural connections to your brand, and becomes a distinctive brand signal. Don’t let the primal, creature-brain reaction of drooling over delicious pods or molten chocolate fool you: delicious is not enough.
Ask yourself: how likely is it that you’ll display chocolate in your next chocolate ad? Exactly, almost 100%. So make sure it works hard for your brand, not just for the category.
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