Danish, premium confectionery brand, Anthon Berg, is taking its ‘award-winning’ Generosity concept to a new level. The concept, which has already proven to be a success domestically and in travel retail is not just brand, but a work ethos.

 

“We like to say that ‘you can never be too generous’,” says Anthon Berg. “Not only do we like to be generous to all the people out there who love chocolate and to encourage consumers to be generous to each other, we also live by the statement ourselves, being responsible towards our suppliers, our consumers and our business.

 

“In doing so, we take care of the local farmers who grow our main commodity – the cocoa bean. This also secures an even better quality chocolate, and ultimately secures a sustainable Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as both parties gain from the cooperation.”

 

The Generosity ‘brand universe’, encourages consumers to be generous through its ad campaigns such as “Show your generosity with a personalised gift”. But for Anthon Berg it’s not just a theory.

 

 

‘STAGGERING RESULTS’

In February this year, for a limited time, Anthon Berg erected a pop-up chocolate store, which sold chocolates, but only accepted ‘generous deeds’ as payment. “The concept of generosity gained a lot of attention,” said Brand Director Hanne Jyrup Rasmussen.

 

“And the results were staggering: 100,000 people saw the shop in five hours. 150,000 facebook feeds in 24 hours, over 1000 influential internet sites internationally wrote about it, and an estimated 3,750,000 facebook and Twitter users posted a feed about it. Sales rose on the market with 12% compared to the same month the year before.”

 

The concept of generosity was weaved into familiar settings in travel retail locations on large billboards with messages such as ‘thank you for watering the plants’ along with a product shot.

 

“At the point of sale in the Tax free shop we had a generosity generator,” adds Rasmussen. “The customers purchasing a bag of Sweet Moments could get their picture taken holding up a sign with various sweet and generous messages.”

 

[Above: Anthon Berg Generosity Brand Universe at Copenhagen airport]

 

CORPORATE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

The generosity generator turned it into a label to apply to a bag of Sweet Moments. “During the promotion, period sales rose significantly making the campaign build around Generosity a great success,” he adds.

 

But the message is also spread, internally. Anthon Berg says that it is their responsibility to constantly be aware of the issues affecting the livelihood of the farmers that grow the company’s cocoa beans. The company can do this is in several ways, but the main method is to ensure the traceability of its cocoa beans.

 

“We are one of the very few chocolate companies in the world that control the whole process from bean to final product, and in addition to this, we uniquely have traceability on our main commodity – whole cocoa beans.”

 

According to the brand, they know exactly which village and district each 60 kg bag of cocoa beans comes from, which encourages sustainable farming and secures a better income for the individual farmers through higher yields among other benefits.

 

 

‘HUMAN RIGHTS’

“This benefits our 4,800 cocoa farmers and their families. So far, the training of 730 teachers has had a positive impact on 24,000 of the cocoa farmer’s children.”

 

“The great taste in chocolate is to us not only the flavour, but also food safety, quality and processing in Denmark, where we create Anthon Berg Chocolate,” says Rasmussen.

 

“But it is also about sustainability, socially and environmentally. And ultimately it is about human rights.

 

“So when we say, that you can never be too generous, we are not flinging out a tag-line that we thought was catchy, nor is it just encouraging consumers to be generous. We believe that you always need to put your money where your mouth is.”