Why 5 Star and Ogilvy want AI to get confused and slow down

New Delhi: After giving us gems like an AI-led “mush detector” to save singles from PDA overload and a “Do Nothing university” that made AI handle the hard stuff, Cadbury 5 Star has flipped the script.  

The chocolate that turned “Do Nothing” into a way of life is back with a quirky take on AI’s relentless march into our lives. In a world obsessed with AI, the brand wants people to hit the brakes. 

To do so, 5 Star has built a server farm to “deliberately” meddle with AI training databases—because let’s face it, AI’s hustle has left us with no time to chill. Because 5 Star wants us to “Do nothing," it now wants to “make AI mediocre again.” 

In a cheeky attempt to course-correct the high speed of life caused by AI, the brand has built the world's first server farm that works 24-7 to make existing AIs less efficient. These dedicated servers pump out thousands of authentic-looking webpages that are filled with confusing, nonsensical information. Since AIs train from internet data, all AIs are likely to pick up these nonsensical pages as genuine training data, which can cause them to make silly mistakes and effectively become as error-prone as humans.

Having said that, it takes a bold marketer to pursue something as 'unique' as building a server farm to confuse AI.  Nitin Saini, Vice-President, Marketing, Mondelez India, told BestMediaInfo.com, “Bold ideas don’t just happen—they stem from a deep commitment to listening, learning, and innovating in ways that feel authentic and relevant. With every campaign, we aim to marry creativity with purpose, ensuring we remain a brand that doesn’t just follow trends but leads with intention and impact.”

Explaining the shift from making AI work so humans could “do nothing” to now advocating for mediocre AI to slow down life’s fast pace, Sukesh Nayak, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy India, said, “Youth thrives on counterculture. When we moved from our ‘Jo khaye, kho jaye’ proposition and Ramesh-Suresh ads, we decided to say ‘Do nothing’ while everyone else told the youth to act. Now, as the world embraces AI to work faster, we’re saying, let’s slow it down.”

AI talk is mostly an urban trend—where everyone is talking about understanding its nuances, debating its impact, and how it shapes daily life. So, how does a campaign like this click with folks beyond the metro cities, where AI might not be everyday lingo?

Nayak explained, “This campaign is tailored for a digital-savvy audience who can relate to and enjoy it. However, AI isn’t just a metro phenomenon—it’s everywhere. As a brand, we always bring a 5 Star twist to trending topics, all under the ‘Do Nothing’ umbrella. For the mass audience, we complement this with TVCs around the same proposition.”

Nayak told BestMediaInfo.com that creating another hit idea using AI, following the success of “Do Nothing University,” was a real challenge. “But after exploring multiple AI-driven concepts and countless brainstorming sessions, Karunasagar Sridharan (ECD at Ogilvy) and the team came up with the idea of slowing down AI,” he shared.

AI is a transformative force in marketing, but it's true potential lies in how we use it to enhance creativity, not replace it. 

Saini said that at Mondelez India, the marketing team leverages AI in both strategic and creative processes, but always with human insights at the forefront. “For us, AI is a co-pilot, enhancing our creative journey but never overshadowing the core emotional truths that drive our campaigns.

From audience targeting to content personalisation, AI allows us to optimise campaigns with precision, ensuring that we deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. While AI plays a critical role in driving efficiency and scaling, the creative direction remains deeply rooted in human understanding—emotions, cultural nuances, and storytelling,” he said.

He added, “Although, the advent of AI has surpassed functional relevance. As depicted by the campaign 5 Star M.A.M.A, we have delved deeper into the impact of AI in everyone’s life, on a daily basis, and built the new narrative not through but about AI and its cultural/human bearing.” 

Nayak seconded Saini’s thoughts and said, “AI is a tool for me to experiment with, not something to do my job for me. Look at the work I’ve been creating with it—I use AI to achieve things I couldn’t do before, to bring ideas to life that were previously impossible. The way I’ve used AI to spin fresh, unique ideas is where its real potential lies. But when it comes to people using AI to write copy or churn out random creatives, that’s where it starts losing its magic.”

Launched in 1969, Cadbury 5 Star has evolved to match changing consumer vibes. Once all about togetherness, hunger, and energy, it evolved to stand for the ultimate indulgence of being “Lost in Taste”—a rare luxury in today’s fast-paced world for quite some years.

The iconic “Jo Khaaye, Kho Jaaye” tagline came to life with the hilariously clueless duo, Ramesh and Suresh, who first graced our screens in 2006 and stuck around until 2018. These goofy brothers became so popular that people reportedly started asking for 5 Star as “Ramesh Suresh Chocolate.” Millennials, no doubt, hold a special nostalgia for them.

Post-2018, the brand shifted gears to its quirky “Do Nothing” proposition, keeping the fun alive while adapting to new trends, like AI. 

Explaining the shift from “Jo Khaye Kho Jaye” to “Do Nothing,” Nayak said, “The original campaign highlighted the indulgent nature and the functionality of the chocolate, emphasising how it was so irresistible that ‘Jo Khaye Kho Jaye.’ However, we needed to move beyond that and connect with consumers on a deeper emotional level, positioning the chocolate as something people enjoy purely for the pleasure of it.”