Tony’s Chocolonely Advert Addresses Cocoa Inequality with Support from System1
Tony’s Chocolonely isn’t your average chocolate brand. Since 2005, the company that’s ‘crazy about chocolate, serious about people’ has been dedicated to championing fair pay and equality in the cocoa industry. Today, with a small group of chocolate giants profiting from keeping cocoa pricing as low as possible, farmers are forced to live in poverty, leading to child labour and deforestation.
Tony’s were given a unique opportunity to go on TV for the first time by winning £500k in media spend from the Sky Zero Footprint Fund which aims to supercharge the reach of sustainable brands. To maximise this opportunity to raise awareness of both the brand and its mission, Tony’s and creative agency House of Oddities developed “There’s Fight in Every Bite”. The ad depicts two friends, one who is already a fan of Tony’s and one who’s never tried it before. As the fan takes a bite of her Tony’s bar, a wrestler clad in a Tony’s-branded leotard appears and tackles his nemesis X-ploitation, a symbol of the problems in cocoa that Tony’s exists to fight. The Tony’s wrestler takes out his opponent while the friend is converted to how tasty Tony’s chunky chocolate is.
”With this campaign, we sought an entertaining, over-the-top approach to showcase both the quality of our chocolate and our commitment to ending exploitation in cocoa. We want people to know that joining our fight is as simple as taking a bite of our delicious chocolate” said Nicola Matthews, UKI Head of Marketing, Tony’s Chocolonely. “As this is our first TV campaign, we wanted to ensure the creative would land these messages and support positive brand associations and commercial growth.”
Early in the creative process, Tony’s turned to System1, the Creative Effectiveness Platform, to put its concept and later its advert to the test with audiences. The team also leveraged System1’s Guidance, whereby experts deliver creative effectiveness tips and optimisations. Rooted in the fact that feeling drives decision making, System1’s Test Your Ad platform measures the emotional response that people have to advertising to predict its short- and long-term business effects. System1’s reports deliver three core quantitative metrics that help marketers Create with Confidence, as well as rich qualitative insights to further improve creative’s impact.
Tony’s worked with System1 to gather emotion-based insights from two audiences in the UK: a nationally representative sample and a custom group of ethical and sustainable shoppers. The brand also incorporated a custom question in the survey, asking respondents to confirm their purchase history with a set of competitors, plus Tonys. This would allow a closer look at the emotional response of buyers vs. non-buyers.
Tony’s first tested its animatic to gain critical consumer feedback. The insights collected at this stage were brought into the first edit, which was again tested with System1. This was where the most robust guidance was provided, particularly focusing on how to drive greater emotional resonance among non-buyers.
Tony’s and House of Oddities then made changes ahead of testing the final cut, such as reducing the number of scenes to enhance clarity of the narrative. This provided a final look at the metrics and how they’d shifted throughout the process.
By testing early and often, and applying System1’s Guidance throughout development, Tony‘s Chocolonely significantly improved the campaign’s long-term brand-building potential before launch. The animatic scored 2.0 Stars, while the finished film achieved 3.7 Stars, moving from Modest to Good long-term growth potential.
Among Tony‘s core audience, the results were even stronger. The final ad secured 4.5 Stars, signalling Strong long-term growth potential. Benchmarking against System1’s Test Your Ad Competitive Edge database, the campaign scored 1.5 Stars above the UK average and 2 Stars above the average for new-to-TV advertisers.
These predictions translated into strong in-market performance. Independent post-campaign analysis showed significant uplifts in ad recall, with creative recall increasing by 13.1 percentage points overall, rising to 14.6 points among chocolate buyers. The campaign also strengthened key brand perceptions among this valuable audience, with significant increases in associations such as great tasting (+4.7), chunky (+4.4) and sustainable (+2.6).
The creative also outperformed FMCG norms on the measures that matter most for long-term growth. Consumers were significantly more likely to say the advert told them something new about Tony‘s (+16.6 points), was interesting and relevant (+12.5 points), made them feel more positive about the brand (+7.0 points) and stood out from other advertising (+6.9 points).
While these outcomes cannot be attributed solely to the campaign, they coincided with Tony‘s strongest commercial momentum to date. Household penetration increased from 9.5% to 10.6% in the weeks following launch, while sales of the featured 180g Milk Chocolate bar grew 20% in the 12 weeks following launch.
Together, the results demonstrate how creative optimisation helped Tony‘s deliver a campaign that built memory, strengthened brand perceptions and supported meaningful business growth.
"System1 supported us at every stage of the creative process and was an instrumental part in helping us deliver advertising that resonates with broad and target audiences."
Nicola Matthews UKI Head of Marketing, Tony’s Chocolonely
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