A TV commercial repurposed for YouTube may have done the trick for Cadbury Schweppes. In a recent Financial Times article, the chocolate-maker cited the popularity of its drum-playing Gorilla commercial as a key reason for the company's improved sales.

The commercial, which had more than 1 million views on YouTube, features a gorilla playing drums to the tune of "In the Air Tonight," a Phil Collins song. While the spot only references Cadbury chocolate for a brief moment at the very end, the simian percussion section appears to have done the trick for a company that had seen sales slump.

"The link between a man in a gorilla suit and a chocolate bar is the one the man in the street finds easily, rather than people in the ad industry," Laurence Green, chairman of Fallon London, the advertising agency behind the campaign, said. "Like the chocolate, this is just a bit of harmless fun. That may not strike people as logical, but when people see the ad they are not scrutinizing it for meaning, they are doing the ironing or waiting for the rugby to start. They want to be entertained."

Cadbury also had success with a Facebook campaign. Earlier this year the company used Facebook groups to do a little market research. The experiment in conversational marketing prompted Cadbury to bring back Wispa, a chocolate bar that had obtained something of a cult following.