A heart shaped box of assorted chocolates with a small vase of pink roses in the background
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Vintage Cadbury Ads

Vintage Cadbury Chocolate Ads

A look back at Cadbury ads from 1955 to 1970

This collection of Cadbury advertisements provides a wonderful snapshot of the changing attitudes towards dating, romance and fun in Australia from the 1950s to the 1970s. 

Early Cadbury Milk Tray campaigns subtly suggest budding romance, featuring young couples holding hands. However, by the Cadbury Roses campaigns of the late 1960s and early 70s, innocence has made way for playfulness and fun with the bold tagline,'When you get Roses, you’ve got yourself a man’.  

Although the delivery may have changed, the idea of bringing people together has remained a consistent theme throughout their advertising over the decades.

Milk Tray: At the fairground
NFSA-ID:
NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is part of a series of three short advertisements, all with the jingle 'sing toora-lay it’s a Milk Tray day today’. The first is set in a fairground with a couple riding on a carousel. The man offers the woman Milk Tray chocolates and, over the soundtrack, male and female voices sing about the chocolate’s creamy centres. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Roses: You've got yourself a man
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is one of three different ads from the late 1960s or early 1970s which feature the tagline 'when you get Roses, you’ve got yourself a man’. It opens with two young women sitting in a train carriage. One (played by Tina Bursill) is offered a chocolate from her friend’s (Sue Smithers) box of Roses only to learn it was given to her by a boy at the cinema the night before. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Roses: All birds like Roses (c.1970)
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is one of three different ads from the late 1960s or early 1970s which feature the tagline 'when you get Roses, you’ve got yourself a man’. In this advertisement, two men in a car are about to drive off when the passenger notices his mate has a box of Roses chocolates beside him which he’s about to give to his girlfriend. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Golden Groovy Beautiful Crunchie
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This TV commercial conjures up the 1960s par excellence, with a discotheque playing host to a young, groovy couple dancing under a glittering ball and eating Crunchie bars.

The clip shows a couple dancing to disco music with strobe lighting to replicate a scene in a nightclub. The song’s lyrics describe the 'beautiful golden groovy beautiful Crunchie taste’. The dancers are intercut with product shots of Cadbury’s Crunchie bar and the word 'Crunchie’ is repeated over and over at the end of the ad. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Snap Goes the Crunchie
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

The Crunchie wrapper in this ad shows it to be a Fry’s product and has no reference to 'Cadbury’s Dairy Milk’ at all. As with earlier campaigns, youth and vibrancy are a key part of the message.

This black-and-white television advertisement for Crunchie is set on a sunny day with a group of young friends playing at the beach. As the Crunchie jingle plays, they eat and 'snap’ their Crunchie bars. The male voice-over describes the bright orange wrapper and the ad ends with the youths walking along the beach, laughing and eating their Crunchie bars. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: Lucky I’ve got these
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is from a series of ads that persuasively argue that Milk Tray chocolates can transform the everyday into a special occasion, satisfy desires and mend rocky relationships.

In it, a man in a telephone booth argues with a woman on the phone. After hanging up, he holds up a box of Milk Tray chocolates and says to camera, 'Lucky I’ve got these’. Next, he embraces the woman he was arguing with, holding the Milk Tray box behind her back. He winks and the ad concludes with the jingle. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: He likes them, she likes them
NFSA-ID:
NFSA ID
270707
Year:
Year

This clip is from a series of ads that persuasively argue that Milk Tray chocolates can transform the everyday into a special occasion, satisfy desires and mend rocky relationships.

In this advertisement a woman gets ready to hit 'the high spots … for an evening of fun’. A box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray chocolates is in her lap and, as she eats one, a male voice-over says 'he likes them, she likes them’. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: A Little Sign of Love (c.1969)
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

The way that Cadbury advertised its chocolates has changed over the years, but a constant theme of their advertisements is romance.

A woman and a man walk separately through a park as a song about Milk Tray chocolates plays over the soundtrack. The lovers see each other, come together to kiss then the man hands the woman a box of Milk Tray chocolates. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Cadbury Crunchie: Exciting Biting (1959)
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This is a 30-second black-and-white television advertisement from 1959 for Cadbury’s Crunchie chocolate bar.

It features a group of performers, each holding a Crunchie bar, in a studio with a large Crunchie bar prop. They dance and mime to a song about Crunchie.

A male voice-over describes the bar and we see the product both in and out of its wrapper. The price of the bar – one shilling – appears in the final shot. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Remember Cadbury's Milk Tray
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

Cadbury’s Milk Tray brand aligns itself with relationships. This is one of two advertisements about building romance between fledgling couples. It features a young couple going to a show make the evening romantic with the purchase of Milk Tray chocolates. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: A moment of inspiration
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

Cadbury’s Milk Tray brand aligns itself with relationships. This is one of two advertisements about building romance between fledgling couples. It shows a male and female hand next to each other as a narrator explains how the purchase of Milk Tray chocolates was 'a moment of inspiration’. The advertisement ends with their hands intertwined against an illustrated border of wedding bells. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: Happiness for two
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is one of three short advertisements with the jingle 'happiness for two’. It is performed in a bare studio with a woman standing alone, centre stage, as a male voice-over says 'for the girl who’s got that all-by-herself lonely feeling’. A group of dancers spill into frame as a bubbly song describes Milk Tray’s 'happy centres’. By the end, the woman has a pile of boxes and a man by her side. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: Three exciting new flavours
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is one of three short advertisements with the jingle 'happiness for two’. It presents three new chocolate flavours – raspberry cordial, coconut ice and caramello deluxe. The ad ends with a couple standing on a bare set as she holds a box of Milk Tray chocolates and he gives her a kiss. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Milk Tray: Make the day a happy one
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This clip is one of three short advertisements with the jingle 'happiness for two’. It is set on a river cruise with people on board eating Milk Tray chocolates and a couple laughing as the jingle plays over the soundtrack. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Roses: For All the Women You Are
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

The light-hearted, romantic style of earlier Cadbury’s chocolates advertisements stands in marked contrast to the sexy and seductive tone adopted here.

This advertisement from the late 1960s or early 1970s shows a woman eating assorted Cadbury’s Roses chocolates. As she bites into the different flavours, she transforms into different types of women – 'crisp, elegant, sophisticated’, 'fresh and young’ and 'exotic’. The male voice-over finishes by saying 'so many different flavours to match every different mood a woman can have’. Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Cadbury: Give Her Roses (1959)
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NFSA ID
270707
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Year

This charming 1950s television ad for Cadbury’s chocolates relies on the audience’s familiarity with the style of love song made famous by 1930s French romantic singer Maurice Chevalier.

It shows a man dressed in hat and gloves, carrying a cane and singing to three women as he offers them each a box of Roses chocolates. The set is in the style of a European café courtyard.

Summary by Poppy De Souza.

Did you buy these Cadbury's Roses'
NFSA-ID:
NFSA ID
270707
Year:
Year

This clip is one of three different ads from the late 1960s or early 1970s which feature the tagline 'when you get Roses, you’ve got yourself a man’. In this advertisement, an older married couple are watching television. The man brings out a box of Roses chocolates for his wife. He says that he won them in a raffle before quickly making it clear that he bought them especially for her. Summary by Poppy De Souza.