Cadbury Campaign Lets Players Get and Give

It may be better to give than to receive, but a Web promotion launched by candy maker Cadbury North America is relieving Canadians of the need to choose. Players who enter the “One for Me, One for You” instant-win game not only get a chance to win a prize for themselves but make a donation equal to the value of that prize toward a Canadian charity.

Participants can enter by going to either of two Web addresses; www.oneforme.ca or www.oneforyou.ca. Either way, they will see a split browser screen listing the instant-win prizes they can get on the left and the charities they can win a contribution for on the right. To enter, players need a UPC from the package of a participating Cadbury brand ranging from Trident or Dentyne gum to Sour Patch Kids and any Halls product. Entering that code, the access key listed and their personal information in the “For Me” form on the left will also duplicate that entry in the “For You” form on the right.

The promotion is specifically sponsored by Cadbury Adams Canada Inc. and is only open to Canadian citizens.

The instant-win drawings occur on a weekly schedule during the three-month campaign, scheduled to end Nov. 8, and entrants can enter up to five times a day for weekly prizes ranging from T-shirts from indie design collective Threadless and bookstore gift cards to Nikon digital cameras and iPod Touch devices.

Players can choose which weekly prize they want to play for by clicking on a specific icon. That click also identifies the charity linked to that prize: World literacy of Canada, the Make-a-Wish foundation of Canada, One Laptop Per Child or Tree Canada, among others. The game will distribute more than 200 weekly prizes over its course.

Entry into the weekly instant-win game also enters a player into the overall drawing for a $100,000 grand prize, with a matching $100,000 award to their choice from a list of selected philanthropies, largely Canada-based, including United Way of Canada, World Vision Canada, Operation Enfant Soleil and CARE Canada.

“We know that Canadians are passionate about giving, but unfortunately many charities around the world are feeling the pinch this year,” Cadbury North America vice president for corporate affairs Luisa Girotto said in a release. “The ‘One for Me, One for You’ promotion is simple. It’s entirely about joy, and it empowers Canadians to put their mark on charitable giving while knowing there’s something in it for them too.”

This is not the first campaign that Cadbury Adams has built around a charitable initiative. Earlier this year the division conducted a product-based “Bicycle Factory” campaign to build and send 5,000 bicycles to needy recipients in the African country of Ghana. Shoppers were encouraged to enter UPC codes from Cadbury brand purchases with the promise that for every 100 codes submitted, the company would buy and send a bike to Ghana, a former British colony, up to a cap of 5,000.

Launched in mid-April 2009, the “Bicycle Factory” campaign hit its 5,000-bike target by late July.