Cadbury has teamed up with VCCP London to launch a new campaign to improve literacy in South Africa. 

The emotive TVC, showing the kindly Mrs Mabena teaching a young boy to read while his mother goes out to work, aims to highlight Cadbury’s brand purpose of shining a light on the power of human generosity. 

The ad launches today in South Africa and will run on TV until 30 September. Alongside the spot, a digital, social and in store activation will be run by partner agency Ogilvy South Africa, inspiring the people of South Africa to help make an impact on the issue of illiteracy. Media planning and execution was delivered by Starcom.

Driven by the stark fact that only 2 per cent of books published in South Africa are in African languages, the activation by Ogilvy will invite South Africans to help address the problem one word at a time, by translating words into their own language.

Using human generosity to help tackle the issue, Cadbury has also partnered with Nal’ibali and a range of South African authors to use these words to create children’s story books in African languages.

“Cadbury has always been a brand that aims to bring people closer together, we are founded in the spirit of generosity and pioneering social impact” said Chocolate Equity Lead, Sub Saharan Africa, Langa Khanyile. “This work forms part of a journey that calls on all South Africans to help tackle the pertinent social tension of illiteracy and help re-write the narratives of our people, in our own words, one word at a time. We are delighted to launch the first TV activity linked to this social mission, Mrs Mabena.”