South Africa has 11 official languages, but during the rule of an oppressive Apartheid government, learning was forced through two white speaking languages—English and Afrikaans. 32 years into our new democracy, and most of our books are still in these two languages. It’s as if the other 9 official African languages still do not exist…

And with our African languages and stories accounting for only 2% of children’s literature in 2021, it’s no wonder our literacy rate is so poor—the lowest in the world.

It stands to reason that being able to read for meaning in your home language is the key foundation for learning.

Cadbury, a brand with generosity at its core, asked everyday South Africans, through a mobile and digital campaign, to generously give of their home language by translating just one word. This act of generosity was then converted into children’s literature, and so the “In Our Own Words” campaign was born.

Cadbury, a brand that has Generosity at its core, historically aims to generously give back to the communities in which it operates. We needed to make contemporary and contextually relevant stories (in all our home languages) as accessible as South Africa’s favourite chocolate.

Appealing to all South Africans, we targeted a core audience of parents (millennials) with kids under ten who speak a home language (80% of our country), other than English or Afrikaans.

This helped ignite a love for reading, and by assisting with translating words for South Africa’s first digitally crowdsourced library, we delivered more resonance and relevance for young readers.

Although Cadbury Dairy Milk never markets product directly to children, they become the purpose audience as we seek to eliminate the isolation that comes from being illiterate by enabling our next generation to fully participate in society.

The ‘in our own words’ campaign, firstly encouraged it’s consumers to translate words into the other 9 official African languages. The process was made simple, through mobile, web and WhatsApp. Local authors were tasked to weave these words together into unique, local children’s stories. And so South Africa’s first user-generated library was born.

Custom audiences, were targeted in their home languages, driving them to the library to download this truly South African children’s literature. Printed books and read-alongs were also created for those without access to the virtual Library. By sharing their generosity, South Africans were able to generate over 500 unique South African stories, with Hundreds of thousands contributing their generosity to generate the stories. Through generosity, we liberated 9 languages, one word at a time.

• +11% gross sales value.

• +6.6% volume growth.

• +10% growth increase in market share.

• 45 000 books were printed and distributed to 14 Vodacom Early Childhood Development Centres, 200 schools, 170 orphanages and Nal’iBali (a national reading-for-enjoyment initiative that spark children's potential through storytelling & reading) reading club inserts.

• 95% Voltage score.

• 4% value share growth.

• More than 21 200 words were translated and woven into 506 stories by local authors.