We asked Canadians to have a break from contests. To do that, we created The Nontest, a non-contest that you can only win by not entering. The campaign featured all the familiar elements of a traditional contest, like the three Kit Kat held in 2015, except all communication here urged people not to enter. We then used social media to find people not entering and reward them with prizes. Naturally, if people used the campaign hashtag #nontest, we were more likely to find them not entering. With that said, several people who did nothing whatsoever became winners.

We built every aspect of a regular contest, then told people not to enter. Elements included a campaign video that didn’t not explain everything, Point-Of-Sale messaging telling people not to enter to win, and supporting digital media that did the same. This was all anchored by a contest microsite that didn’t really work; it looked/acted like traditional contest sites, but anytime you attempted to fill the entry form you’d be denied and instead encouraged to share branded content. We also rewarded people not entering, sometimes those playfully playing along using our double-negative language (some used quadruple negatives!), while other times rewarding those trying to bash us (some said contests are scams, we’d said they won!). We even publicly notified celebrities that they’d won by not entering, several of these messages spurring incredible fan engagement and increased non-entries. However, we’re still waiting for Drake to claim his Kit Kat towel.

So far, 35,000,000+ Canadians have entered the Nontest (by not entering it). Even you’ve entered and might win. Beyond that, we’re seeing 600+ people a day share how they’re not entering, a 260% increase from the average entry rate of Kit Kat’s 2015 contests (where we actually asked people to share something). Website wise, 27% of visitors attempted to enter the contest, nearly doubling the 15% from 2015 (again, where we explicitly asked people to enter). And shockingly, 20% of people that started the entry form (where each field encouraged you to stop immediately) continued to the end, clicking through all 20 fields. Engagement wise, numbers are up 995% over last year, mostly due to video content. But these results are secondary to sentiment because we’ve never seen our varied audience globally “get” and connect with a concept so quickly and completely. Apparently, people totally don’t not love the Nontest.

At it’s core, The Nontest a traditional CPG promotion. There are prizes, and the brand is using those prizes to inspire fan interaction. In execution however, The Nontest is seemingly quite non-traditional. For fans to win a trip to Costa Rica or a $50 Amazon gift card, all they have to do is not enter. And they’ll increase their chances of winning by sharing how they aren’t entering with #nontest. This approach has ushered in previously unseen levels of consumer participation and social activity because apparently, people are far more likely to do something if you tell them not to.

The broader brand strategy was to develop a promo intimately connected to Kit Kat’s belief in taking breaks. When looking at their 2015 promos, we realized that while over 40,000 Canadians had entered, 35,000,000+ people were already having a break from our contests. So we decided to reward those people. Functionally however, there was a different strategy. Our audience, and modern consumers in general, are extremely savvy, witty, and often troll-y (no matter what you do online these days, there will be trolls). This approach spoke to the savvy, engaged the witty, and somehow negated any trolls. In other words, we designed a promo with a self-reflexive and slightly absurdic concept that our audience appreciated and connected with. And, you couldn’t troll it because you literally can’t enter the contest, so even the trolliest of trolls ended up entering-by-not-entering. It was bliss for community managers.

Contests are everywhere. And while that’s nothing new, their prevalence has only increased with the rise of social and digital media. Kit Kat held three contests alone in 2015, which was the driving factor in the creative brief for this campaign. The brand was looking for a way to evolve their promotional activity in 2016, creating a different experience for existing and new fans. Considering their tagline and core essence is all about having a break, continually asking people to enter promotions by doing stuff seemed like a disconnect. So we decided to go in a different direction.