Insight
The chocolate landscape in the Middle East is highly cluttered with strong global players. It is highly competitive and fragmented, with a variety of messages. The most successful brands increasingly use emotion to connect, while entertainment becomes a basic requirement.
The Category and its Communication by default allude to ‘break’ with many brands scoring high on the ‘perfect for a break’ attribute. This makes it all the more critical for KIT KAT to create a compelling emotional brand story around a ‘break’, staying differentiated and owning it.
KIT KAT’S main competitors are within the Mars portfolio (Galaxy, Snickers, Twix, Mars, M&M’ etc.) who continuously outspend in media, as well as have a higher frequency of consumer promotions in trade.
Therefore, there was a need for compelling communication to break through the threshold. However, population compositions vary greatly between countries in the GCC and Levant. For example, KSA predominantly consists of the local population whereas the UAE is the opposite with expats dominating the population.
The challenge for KIT KAT was to deliver a message that speaks to all, yet connects at a personal level.
KIT KAT as a product is the perfect balance of wafer and chocolate, suitable for everyone. Despite the differences across nine countries and various mixes of local and expat populations, KIT KAT had to demonstrate its appeal to everyone.
Strategy
It targeted ‘Busy Go Getters’ – Young, digitally connected, savvy Arabs, for whom a simple thing like a break can make a big difference to their mood and day. They are family oriented leading demanding lives, for whom creating a balance between work and personal life is a challenge.
Human truth - what is unique about the audience in the GCC is the rise of individualism in a Collective society. A socially controlled culture leaves young adults in the region yearning for individual expression. Especially Saudis who want to ‘fit in’ due to social/cultural norms, but yet they want to be an individual in their own right. But nothing could be more befitting - no two individuals are the same, so why should their breaks be?
Celebrate the Breakers’ Breaks celebrates the ‘breaker’ in everyone in a personal and sincere manner. However, there was a major barrier - the word ‘breaker’, meaning someone who takes breaks, was not a word in Arabic or English.
MEC's plan of attack was to Break into culture. Infuse the concept of a ‘breaker’ into culture through the very people who create culture for today’s Arab youth – celebrities, media, influencers and friends. The campaign and its success were about people.
Communication Insight - A message is more likely to trend if it is unbranded. The agency capitalised on this insight in social media. Communication is more likely to resonate with consumers when it is told by people they know or admire vs. a brand (power of WOM).
Execution
To establish ‘breaker’, MEC created stunts with high profile entertainment personalities in KSA and UAE through the same the concept – staged disappearances.
On Sa7i’s top-rated show, the presenter Khalid quit. YouTube, Twitter and Instagram were ablaze with confusion and pleading from fans in disbelief. Khalid was even interviewed on Al Arabiya about his plans!
On Virgin’s morning show, Kris Fade spoke about taking a break for a week, then invited the first 30 listeners who showed up at the station to find their inner breakers in the Maldives. It became the most talked-about event in the UAE.
It sparked mainstream media coverage. The campaign manifesto launched across online, TV and radio, revealing KIT KAT as the hero behind these breaks. It was praised as “the first ad… correctly portraying Saudi culture”. Custom break-size Breaker videos were created on Tumblr and seeded through native Tumblr ads - a MENA first.
Everyone across the region was celebrating breakers as the agency activated a YouTube Masthead, Facebook Reach Block, Yahoo Homepage Takeover and thousands of conversations on social media.
“Breakers” became woven into pop culture on Dancing with the Stars and even spoken about by Scarlett Johansson and Blake Lively.
Fifteen influencers, through a regional-first co-creation workshop, inspired everyday people to share their own breaker types to comprise a UGC manifesto.
The Breaker Show, a stand-alone 3-10 minute branded content series on Sa7i, launched to celebrate breakers and continues to entertain millions today.
Results
KIT KAT achieved its highest ever-recorded and category-leading market share, while solidifying its connection with breaks and leading the Chocolate category.
CtBB reached 23 million+ people, with 900,000+ engagements, 4,000,000+ organic reach on Twitter and 4,500+ video shares, 10-30x more than any FMCG brand during that time. Thousands commented on Instagram before KIT KAT had a page!
TV, Print and Digital media covered the stunts (without PR push), building suspense then recognising KIT KAT as the hero behind the breaks.
The Breaker Show has been watched over seven million times with 50% watching the full episodes. The show received 32,000+ engagements on YouTube alone and a 90% positive sentiment.
CtBB became a global campaign and will continue in 2016, with positive effects everywhere it launched. From its conception in Dubai, CtBB is turning KIT KAT’s ambition to be the #1 Iconic brand globally into a reality.