Brand Experience and Activation > Excellence in Brand Experience

GIVE THE VOICE A BREAK

PUBLICIS MIDDLE EAST, Dubai / NESTLE / 2020

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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

TV Sponsorships are the go-to solutions to increase reach and awareness. But when KitKat started to lose association with its iconic ‘break’ platform, it wasn’t enough to just sponsor The Voice, the biggest TV show in the Middle East. We needed to reignite love and attention.

How? By blurring the lines between TV and commercial breaks. We recreated the program’s stage for our spots and used key elements of the show to create an uninterrupted story, immersing viewers in the brand experience like never before, as our commercials looked like an extension of the show.

Background

KitKat and “Break” have been inseparable for 62 years.

Recently, the chocolate category has witnessed a decline. To grow business and bring back excitement to the category, KitKat’s focus shifted from equity (2-Finger & 4-Finger chocolate), to innovations: from raspberry to cheesecake to tiramisu, we went all out, and it paid off. These exciting new flavors helped drive market share and business: short term gains.

However, this also allowed competition to gain traction in the “break” territory (brand health study showed a drop in KitKat associations with “satisfies your break”) and threatened to affect our core business.

We needed to react and reclaim back the “Break Territory”.

Objectives:

Increase spontaneous awareness vs pre-campaign

Recall to exceed 49% industry benchmark

Brand linkage to exceed 47% industry benchmark

Increase equity amongst non-users of KitKat:

Increase in “A brand I love”

Increase in “Helps make my break more enjoyable” vs pre-campaign

Describe the creative idea

Commercial breaks… No one likes them and people usually zap and skip them.

So, KitKat blurred the line between live TV and the commercial break, by creating a real ‘commercial break hijack’.

By doing so, KitKat shattered all stereotypical perceptions people had about commercial breaks and made the break experience a totally seamless one...from cameramen on breaks, to The voice chairs (literally) taking a break, viewers experienced the branch within the native environment of the show.

Describe the strategy

Our core audience are 18-34 year-olds (Gen Z + Millennials). They decide what’s in and what’s not, and fuel the category growth with a high influence on household purchases.

While they're currently aware of and consume KitKat, they are always ready to try new brands and products. In this impulse category, they gravitate towards Top of Mind brands. The challenge is to therefore find smart ways to push Top of Mind and keep consideration high.

We wanted to reach our audience effectively. And so, the perfect opportunity was to go after one of the most popular global TV formats, and the highest rated TV show among our Target Audience in the region: The Voice.

But we had to do it differently and avoid the risk of losing our audience as soon as the break went live (very short attention span, juggling different screens, boring 5 sec sponsorships etc…).

Describe the execution

Our TVC appeared in the first ad spot: we created an exact replica of the program’s stage, so when the program goes on a commercial break, the Voice ‘chairs’ come to life and take a break too; leaving the audience confused whether the program was still on, or not.

Three different TV spots complemented the 3 different stages of the program: Blind Auditions, Battle Rounds and Live Performances, from script to the visual cues, immersing our viewers in never-seen-before entertainment.

We created a Break Room for contestants; with a secret door linking the break on and offscreen.

The campaign expanded to in-store promos, E-commerce, radio, stunt and social, where we had “behind the scenes” featuring funny content of the chairs on a break.

On Youtube, we targeted people searching for re-runs of the program and urged them to skip the ad, so the chairs could enjoy their break.

List the results

KitKat revolutionized the use of sponsorships in the region.

We generated unprecedented top of mind awareness for the brand.

Recall: 73% (vs 49% benchmark)

Brand linkage: 87% (vs 47% benchmark)

Purchase Intent: 86% would definitely buy it (vs 52% benchmark)

Not only that but repurchase grew by 6% vs pre-campaign: a great result considering the category is driven by lack of loyalty and massive impulse!

Not only did KitKat successfully reach its core audience, but the campaign also led to higher equity and saliency amongst non-users of KitKat! Metrics such as:

“A brand I love” increased by 14%

“Helps make my break more enjoyable” increased by 11%

“Is good for uplifting moments/improves my mood” increased by +14%

And with a staggering 93% spontaneous awareness.

Most importantly, BREAK once again meant having a KITKAT!

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