Freddo: Anthropomorphism.
“But Dad, why does this egg have Freddo on it?” It’s a good question. Cadbury sell two identical Easter eggs – one with Freddo on it, and another without. The difference? Well, only the logo as far as I can tell!
So why does Cadbury use the Freddo brand at all? Is there any psychology to support this? Well, yes. This is anthropomorphism – applying human characteristics to something non-human.
Chocolate, and Cadbury Dary Milk in particular, is delicious. Cadbury as a historical brand is also very well known among adults. I suspect though that giving the product a friendly face (quite literally) does absolutely no harm in enhancing the appeal of the product to a younger audience. There are lots of chocolate brands on the shelf, but few that have a cartoon frog.
There’s good reason for a brand to adopt human characteristics – even through a frog-like character! For example, Daryanto, Alexander and Kartika (2022) showed that ‘brand perception’ increases for brands that have a logo featuring a character, such as the Michelin man. More recently, I’ve read research showing that anthropomorphising fruit and vegetables can help to sell produce that is unusually shaped (Kim et al., 2024)! I would expect therefore that an Easter egg with a character on it is likely to also be more appealing – just as many cereal manufacturers realized years ago (Tony the Tiger; Snap, Crackle & Pop etc).
Sharma and Rahman (2022) actually published a review on brand anthropomorphism a few years ago. Interestingly, they actually observe a difference between brands that deliberately adopt anthropomorphic characteristics (designed brand anthropomorphism) and those that are just perceived anthropomorphically (perceived brand anthropomorphism).
If you do choose to embody human characteristics in your brand though, there are then a wide variety of further choices to make. Will you use a character? Will it have a name? What sort of personality will it have and how will you convey this? I wonder the same about Freddo. Why is he called Freddo? Is this short for Frederick? And anyway, what is the link between frogs and chocolate?! Sadly, following the death of Freddo’s creator in 2007, that’s a question we’ll never be able to answer.
