The KitKat Kit
Nestlé
Issue 54 | March 2020
Agency
Wunderman Thompson London
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Steve Aldridge Executive Creative Director Lucas Peon Global Creative Director Jason Berry UK Creative Director Jo Wallace Creatives Jeremy Little, James Hobbs Designer Xavier Segers
Production Team
Senior Producer Joseph Bassary Product Designer Chris Savage
Other Credits
Business Director Paul Kirkley Associate Business Director Sam Brooks Account Director Chris Braks Account Manager Ben O’Neill-Gregory Social Media Specialist James Treen
Date
May 2019
Background
KitKat wanted to reinvent its famous creative message to show how even the most intricate and demanding hobbies are better if you occasionally ‘have a break’. It teamed up with Airfix for a ‘narrowcast’ campaign working with YouTube influencers and supported by press ads and OOH posters.
Idea
We hear a lot about the big brand partnerships Apple and Nike, Spotify and Starbucks or Aston Martin and 007.
However, brands shouldn’t overlook niche audiences – especially when there are genuine synergies at play.
Anyone who’s spent time poring over the landing gear of a 1/48 scale Supermarine Spitfire FR Mk XIV will tell you there are times you just need to take a break! Targeting some of the most patient, dedicated and fanatical hobbyists in the world, model makers, KitKat and Airfix joined forces to create The KitKat Kit.
The special edition of Airfix’s Supermarine Spitfire had a sealed KitKat added into the kits mounted on a 3D-printed plastic ‘sprue’, which also incorporated the famous Have a Break message. An additional step was even inserted into the instruction booklet telling the hobbyists exactly when to open the bag (as Step 38), take out the snack and enjoy their break.
Adding a custom step into one of its kits was a first for Airfix and a first for KitKat, putting its bars into another brand’s packaging for the first time.
A limited number of these special kits were sent to the most popular model-making YouTubers. The unboxing and build videos they produced were warmly received by the online model-making community.
Results
The campaign engaged 80% of the biggest YouTube influencers in the model-making community to reach a subscriber base of 250K hobbyists.
It translated to 95% pick up in earned media for the month the campaign ran.
Our Thoughts
Big ideas in advertising are almost always moronically simple. I suspect it’s why so many get jettisoned. Clever folks both agency and client side often want to justify the large amounts of money involved by being sophisticated and subtle.
This line was first used in 1957. It has both clarity and purpose. It suggests implicitly that the reader is a person who works hard and is deserving of both a break and a chocolatey reward.
Countless creative people at JWT have had fun with it across all media channels and some have won awards with it, coming up with inventive new ways (like this) of interpreting the theme and building a global brand.
The result: Nestlé say 650 KitKats are consumed every second.