Radio and Audio > Radio & Audio: Sectors

COMMA

VML, Manila / KITKAT / 2024

Awards:

Shortlisted Spikes Asia
CampaignCampaign(opens in a new tab)
MP3 Original Language

Overview

Credits

Overview

Write a short summary of what happens in the radio or audio work.

The campaign consists of a series of radio spots celebrating punctuation breaks. Each spot centers on a particular break (the comma, the ellipsis, and the em dash), detailing how each one serves up a different kind of break experience for words and sentences. The same kind of breaks we all deserve, as KitKat reminds us.

Background:

These days, we are writing more than ever. Whether it’s via email, via group chat or posting something online.

Now more than ever, we are relying on punctuation marks to give our thoughts and words proper breaks for clarity, for breathing and for understanding. The kind of proper breaks KitKat reminds us to take.

Please provide any cultural context that would help the jury understand any cultural, national or regional nuances applicable to this work e.g. local legislation, cultural norms, a national holiday or religious festival that may have a particular meaning.

None. The Philippines is an English-speaking country, although Filipino-Tagalog is the official language, over 90 million or close to 90% of the population speak fluent English as a second language.

Describe the Impact:

KitKat has long been the brand champion of breaks. In the Philippines, KitKat has been singling out different kinds of breaks over the past decade. For this campaign, the focus is on writing breaks.

The campaign ran last April 2023 and was the opening salvo in a series of executions across different media touchpoints.

Translation. Provide a full English translation of any audio.

Consider, ponder, and notice for a moment, the comma.

An underappreciated punctuation mark,

yet when words overflow, go overtime,

and are overworked, it gives them their much-needed break.

Think of words as clothes in a laundromat.

The comma would separate the whites, the reds, and the cashmere tankini.

They’re the speed bumps on a verbal freeway.

The fermatas in a sonata.

The (gasps) and (gasps) in a Hitchcock classic.

They can be the boundaries between Upper Antipolo and Lower Antipolo

or between your work-life and your life-life.

That is the comma.

Not a stop, nor a halt, nor an end.

But a perfectly timed break.

The kind everyone deserves.

So go on, have a pause, a beat, a minute.

Have a break, comma, have a KitKat.

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