Release and Marketing
The television premiere of the advertisement was on Friday 31 August 2007, during the finale of the eighth series of the United Kingdom reality television show Big Brother, watched by around 14% of British viewers. Additional 90-second spots were commissioned through September, switching to 10-second cuts in October. The 90-second version was rebroadcast as the final commercial in the break before the final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup between England and South Africa on 20 October, with the face of the bass drum emblazoned with an English flag and the slogan "Bring It Home". Another variant of the advert was broadcast a week earlier before the semi-final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup between England and France on 13 October, with the face of the bass drum emblazoned with an English flag and the slogan "Come On Lads". The spot cost Cadbury an estimated £700,000.
Billboard and print campaigns were set up to run alongside the television commercial, and a sponsorship deal with the "Great Gorilla Run" charity fun run through London on 23 September 2007 was set up through Sputnik Communications. An online presence was established with a competition on the Glass and a Half Full Productions website offering tickets to Las Vegas. The Glass and a Half Full Productions website was created by Hyper as part of a UK-focussed digital marketing strategy.
Following the positive reception of the commercial in the United Kingdom and online, Cadbury Canada arranged to show the advertisements in 850 cinemas across Canada throughout November 2007. Further online tie-ins were launched, including an online game and a competition to win a gorilla suit, a purple drum kit and a year's supply of bananas and Cadbury chocolate bars.
The advertisement premiered on New Zealand television on Monday, 30 June 2008. The advertisement also helped "In the Air Tonight" re-enter the New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart at number three in July 2008 and went on to number one the following week, beating its original 1981 #6 peak.
In August 2008, the ad commenced airing on Australian television. It was also re-released in the United Kingdom and Ireland with a new backing track (Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart". According to UK newspaper The Guardian "The new version pays homage to the internet mash-up artist who remixed the original with Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart"
In July 2009, the Cadbury World visitor attraction in Birmingham opened a new area, Advertising Avenue. Towards the end of the attraction, in the Music Shop, a chocolate DJ ('D.J. Choc') invites guests to enjoy four selected clips of favourite Cadbury TV adverts - three of these are broadcast on flatscreen monitors, culminating with the lights in a previously-un-noticed drum booth coming on, with a full-sized anamatronic gorilla drumming to In the Air Tonight.
Read more about this topic: Gorilla (advertisement)
Famous quotes containing the words release and and/or release:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)