Tony’s Chocolonely’s ‘Only Red Room’ with Pantone is match made in Soho

Chocolate phenomenon Tony’s came to Here Be Dragons with a simple brief: amplify its partnership with Pantone. Creative director Dom Radcliffe explains how they stepped up to the task.

As the experts in colour, Pantone ratified the iconic status of Tony’s original milk chocolate bar by giving it its own colour code, ‘Tony’s Only Red’. Our job was to make this culturally relevant to consumers and the mediascape.

While the Pantone partnership is a significant milestone in brand saliency - and catnip to marketers - why would the person on the street care?

Here Be Dragons’ mission was to anchor this partnership in something tangible that consumers could interact with. Tony’s is such a sensual, emotional and tactile brand that this - along with the innate sexiness of the bold colour of its bar - became our jumping off point.

Creative brainstorming

The colour red has many connotations for Tony’s and for culture. It’s passionate, bold, enigmatic and evocative.

The fact that the Pantone code is ‘Only Red’ gave us something highly singular to focus on - taking these colour codes and mapping them to something immediate and attention-grabbing that has long used the colour red to catch the public eye.

Using the ‘naughtiness’ of red, the indulgence and X-rated nature of the Tony’s brand and product, we conceived the ‘Tony’s Only Red Room’ - a Soho pop-up in London’s Red Light District (aka the ‘Red Bite District’).

The execution

The Tony’s Only Red Room was a walk-in booth where consumers could come and have a private passionate moment with their favourite chocolate bar.

Decked out with a sumptuous interior and lush red fabrics, the pop-up took its codes from Amsterdam nightlife, the place of Tony’s origins. Step into the booth, visible from the street via the pavement-side window, and a concierge would pull back the curtain to allow the consumer 5 minutes of alone time to enjoy a whole bar of Tony’s - no questions asked.

The genius of the idea relied on the location. We took over a small clothes shop, right next to an actual Soho sex shop ‘Eros’, which gave the execution that right amount of sexual authenticity.

We pulled through just the right amount of supporting XXX from the sex industry - a red neon light that said ‘Choco, Choco, Choco’, a sultry voice that provided a sensual soundtrack to your experience and some independent expert commentary from a psychologist about the relationship between the colour red and carnal desire.

How did it go?

There was a queue around the block to get into the experience, with media taking all available slots offered to attend and influencers using the backdrop to post organic content.

We used the pop-up as a staging post to get the brand talking with the media. Tony’s has such purpose inherent in its DNA that this activation became another touchpoint to talk about its mission—in this case, confidence, indulgence and empowerment. No shame!

Scoffing a whole bar of Tony’s is a human truth - we’ve all done it. This was about anti-shaming that behaviour, celebrating the moment to yourself, and getting your hands on a free slab of the good stuff.