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This case is about a small change indirection for a compaign that led to abig change in advertising effect.

Painting the statue pink

GOLD & GRAND PRIX J. Walter Thompson

Campaigns for established product brands (over 2m)sponsor: Millward Brown

Grand Prixsponsor: TRBI

Planned by: Fern MillerAgency:J. Walter ThompsonClient: Nestl Kit Kat

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Painting the statue pinkThis case is about a long running campaign. On the face of it, things were rollingalong very happily but on closer analysis the brand showed early signs that it waslosing relevance with consumers and that communication wasnt helping as muchas it could.

The brand had become like a famous statue that you cease to notice until theday someone covers it with pink paint Kit Kat needed to re-examine its coreproperty of breaks.

By observing what a break represents in peoples lives in the context of the24/7 work ethic of the 21st century we were able to re-appraise the true value ofthe break idea.

When we witnessed people expressing guilt about taking their breaks, Kit Katdetermined to stand up for the break and to champion its benefits actively ratherthan noting its need, passively, as in the past. This change of direction may seemsmall, but has breathed new life into a well known brand property and re-energised a brand everyone thought they knew already.

BackgroundIn 2002, Kit Kat reported record volume sales. The Kit Kat advertising campaignreceived 6 major creative awards between 1999 and 2002, and the tracking study

regularly showed recognition scores coming in at over 90%. We had just won theGrocers Best Campaign award for the second year running. Kit Kat was easilymaintaining its lead as the best-selling confectionery brand in the UK. It was timeto change everything.

Whats not to like?It would have been easy for us to continue as were, with the well established Havea break campaign: wittily observed snapshots of frustrating situations from whichthe brand invited you to Have a break. Everyone in the agency knew a Kit Katad when they saw one, from the handful of zs and xs during a scrabble game, tothe weeble that wobbled but could never fall down. We could make a dozen at a

time, directors bombarded us with test films, the client could make their own adsup and easily judge great from good executions. We were running in almostevery media available, from cinema to Chinese takeaway lids. Life on Kit Kat waseasy breezy.

However, digging under the surface of apparent success showed us some earlywarning signs that the life in this campaign was beginning to flag. The first signalwas a matter of cold, hard cash: in order to maintain and improve volume salesover the last couple of years, the promotional spend on Kit Kat had been slowlyincreasing, undermining the value that brand building is supposed to protect.

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This, in turn, was driven by the all-important issue for confectionery: salience.Despite increasing advertising spend, spontaneous brand awareness hadnt shownso much as a flicker in a positive direction in the last year or so. This could beargued away as agencies often do: a well known brand leader advertises as muchto defend a strong position as to increase awareness. But heavens, even Mars weregaining on us and they hadnt run any decent ads for years! And then there werethe gathering qualitative reports that nagged away at you: a young man of 19 whocould name every single major promotion and limited edition that the brand had

run in the last three years but when asked to recall an ad struggled to think ofanything since the famous Panda ad in 1989. The fact was, most groupsdescribed Kit Kat as old fashioned and a bit dull. There seemed to be adisconnect between what adland thought of the ads and what people couldrecollect in their living rooms.

It came down to this: people were beginning to forget about Kit Kat, and theadvertising was no longer helping them to remember.

Strategy: painting the statue pinkWe suspected that the fact that Kit Kats advertising was so closely knitted into thefabric of popular culture was becoming a disadvantage: we couldnt be seenanymore. Sure, 95% of people could complete the slogan have a break... but,

just as saying I love you every day diminishes the phrases power, the line hadbecome a parroted nothingness. The brand could continue to stick the endlineon as many apposite, edgy and smart films as it liked, but it wouldnt do us anygood until it was given some real meaning again.

Advertisers have become familiar with the concept of disruption: breaking therules of a category of communications in order to create stronger impact for abrand. Kit Kat needed to disrupt its own communications. A colleague had agreat analogy for this: you can walk past the same statue on your way to work everymorning and never see it, until someone splashes a bucket of paint over its head.It was time to paint the Kit Kat statue pink.

For this was not a case of reinventing the wheel. We needed to look the brand

square in the eye and find out what it was all about. A brand like Kit Kat ishardwired with assumptions and executional mannerisms. We needed to pickthese out and determine what was going to help us in the future. We had to askourselves the sacrilegious question: was it time to lose Have a Break altogether?

Clearly 50 years of building the fame of a great advertising slogan should notbe thrown away without careful thought. So the additional question was this: wasthere still value in inviting people to Have a break? If so, we simply needed todraw attention to the line afresh. If not, we needed to reconsider.

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Research: re-consider the breakKit Kats core branded property is the idea of a break. We had spent a very longtime indeed building our ownership of that, an enviable property in the world ofsnack food. So what was the relevance of the break today, almost half a centuryafter it was first employed to sell the British public a chocolate wafer biscuit?

To find out we watched video diaries of a huge range of people, taking, nottaking and talking about, their breaks. We found that, sure, it was increasinglydifficult to give yourself a break in the context of 21st century presenteeism, the

growing influence of an American/Japanese work ethic and the ever-increasingpressure on students of all ages to excel in exams. However, because of this, thebreak had become a highly loaded emotional territory.

If you, self-motivated desk monkeys that you are, doubt the relevance of breaks,pop down on Saturday and chat to the check-out girl whose 11.20 break was eateninto by Brian from the delicatessen who had an extra fag. Talk to the chap intelesales who puts a coat over his chair and leaves a half drunk cup of coffee onhis desk whilst he pops round the corner to see a friend. Talk to the 11 year olds

with impending SATS who had to work through lunch break to get their essaysdone. Have a word with the Mum who gets ten minutes to herself for a cup of teaand a biscuit all day, but Murphys law says that someone will come round theminute shes sat down and think shes been on the sofa all day.

We did, and we found that people know breaks are good for the mind, bodyand soul, that they are crying out for them and feel frazzled without them, butoften feel guilty about taking them. It was time for someone to stand up for thebreak.

For years Kit Kat had been passively observing the UKs need to take breaks.Now it was time to wade in and actively persuade people of the benefits of a break.

Creative Brief: becoming a championAll we needed to convey was this:Kit Kat champions the benefits of a break

The magic word in our briefing was champions. Some teams didnt note this

word but for the team that did hear it, the campaign that everyone couldnt waitto make fell directly out of this mission to stand up for a break. It may seem likea small step to move from observing the need for a break to championing thebreak, but the difference it made to the creative was dramatic.

The creative idea that we fell in love with we call Break Philosopher-anexplosion of analogies, stories, facts and illustrations, each pointing out howimportant breaks are. With a strong, credible spokesperson in Jason Statham,some hard-hitting press and the sad tale of a fish who never took a break, welaunched a campaign that is designed to capture the relieved imaginations of a

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hard working population and give them nuggets of inspiration to encourage themto reconsider their breaking habits. You are not a salmon entered the vernacular(every time one of us hears it, in the back of a cab, in a pub, amongst a group ofkids on the bus, we are reminded that we were onto something in the first place,

which is something of a relief for us too).

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TV : The Salmon

The salmon spends its life fighting to getupstream. It beats itself up fighting thecurrents of massive rivers.

It struggles for thousands of miles.It drags itself over rocks in shallow waters.It forces its way up high waterfalls.

It never stops. It never rests.

Remember. You are not a salmon.Kit Kat. Take a break.

It battles and battles its way upstream.Finally. Heroically. It reaches its goal

And its absolutely knackered. And it dies.

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ConclusionThe response of consumers has been breathtaking, ranging from one viewernominating Kit Kat for a Nobel Peace Prize, to the slightly more substantialevidence of record-breaking tracking results and, the most pleasing of all, an upliftin full value sales of the brand.

Success could have mesmerised us into allowing one of the UKs best-loved

slogans to die of neglect. But recognising the real relevance to the UK of thebrands core property of breaks, and actively fighting for it has resulted in creativethat generates wholehearted, memorable love for Kit Kat.

Posters

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