Opportunities and Social Networking

In my quite a few blogs I’ve argued what I thought at the time were two separate points:

(a) that there are opportunities out there for those with the skill and resources to take them

and

(b) that just as we all now recognise the critical role of the web in building our business, we will all have to come to terms  (much against my own instincts) with recognising that social networking is also becoming an increasingly important part of our web strategy

And I’ve realised today that those two blog themes come together neatly with Cadburys!  It is probably best explained by a few newspaper quotes:

Daily Telegraph 18 Aug 2007 … Cadbury is to bring back the Wispa chocolate bar after a campaign on websites like Facebook and MySpace to demand its return.

Daily Telegraph 10 Sep 2007 … Cadbury says 23m bars will go on sale in October, but no more will be produced after that unless internet demand translates into sales. “This is as much a test of the internet as of our chocolate. If the Internet really does turn out to be a valid cross section of public opinion we’ll bring it back permanently.

Daily Telegraph 04 Aug 2008 … Cadbury is bringing back the Wispa chocolate bar. The chocolate company said 20 million bars were sold in seven weeks during a trial limited run last year.

Independent 26 Feb 2009 … Cadbury reports profits up 57%. Wispa delivered sales of £25m since September 2008, a record for a launch.

Need I say more!