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Why it is my best campaign
To choose a piece of work as one's career-best is like choosing one child over the other. For the purpose of this column, I will, however, pick 'Kit Kat Social Media Answering Machine', which I helped create out of JWT Singapore for Nestlé Singapore.
Kit Kat has been around for a while and is seen as the ultimate purveyor of breaks. After all, it has continuously refreshed its advertising and stayed true to its 'have a break, have a Kit Kat' philosophy. The digital campaign too is a fresh approach towards building a connection and restoring relevance with its target group. In fact, the media used, the insights that led to its conception, all these factors put together make the campaign a special one.
Client's brief to the agency
Kit Kat targets the 17-to-25-year age group. It has its fair share of loyalists. They may be individuals who have grown up with the brand but are not necessarily the target audience today. The client's brief was simple; to create 'brand love' in the target audience and to put Kit Kat back into the consideration set. The brief was to create something disruptive and yet meaningful.
Challenges faced
We decided to undertake research for the purpose of this particular advertisement. At a very basic level, our data showed that the platform to connect with the target group for the brand needed to be digital. This audience base is 24/7 online via their mobile phones while watching TV (if at all), eating dinner or in bed. They don't disconnect from the digital media and while online, a bulk of their time is spent on the social media. Once we established our space (digital, in this case), we knew the way ahead was to harness the power of social media.
The only challenge: social media activations is about action, asking the user to perform tasks, even if it includes basics such as watching videos, voting for contests, clicking to share content, etc. Kit Kat, on the other hand, suggests taking a break. So, we needed to find a balance.
Routes considered
When we first began speaking about the campaign, even before we froze on using social media, we discussed about using outdoor creatively. Singapore is a small country and it is not very difficult to get attention through this medium, quite unlike India, where on-ground activation can end up being a very localised event. However, we didn't really pursue these thoughts very actively. We commissioned a research to guide us with regard to deciding the line of thought we needed to pursue for our social media campaign.
The route chosen & why
The research was carried out not just in Singapore, but also China and the United States, among the age group of 17-28 (slightly extending the target group). The research threw back some stunning insights. It confirmed our hunch that as social media gets more pervasive, a new kind of stress builds up in popular culture - online peer pressure, fear of losing out, being disconnected.
Simply put, social media is stressful. The research showed respondents suggesting that there be a butler like service to manage rudimentary social media functions or help them observe social media 'etiquette'. Since, not liking photos or status updates from friends may be considered rude on social media. So the challenge was how do you do something social that's also about taking a break.
Outcome
The result of the research findings led to the world's first Social Media Answering Machine for which one had to download the Kit Kat social break widget. This tool could automatically 'like' photos and posts where the user was 'tagged' on sites like Facebook. It also automatically tweeted updates of users and shared relevant posts that were linked on popular social networking sites.
As the website for the widget, says: "When our social media runs on autopilot, we can appear connected, intelligent and cool, even when we are taking a break. We ensured that the widget was customised for the users, on how often she wanted the updates to be aired online.
Will it work today
It is a fairly recent campaign so it is obviously working for the brand today. The widget was downloaded by people from 100 countries and mentioned in news reports across the world.
In fact, I feel this kind of work - where brands focus on building a utility that takes away a stress point from the users' life, providing them an experience that they haven't had till date - will become the norm in the days to come.
It is great because it forces marketers and agencies to do something worthwhile for people and not merely add to the advertising pollution. Thanks to the omnipresence of digital media in our lives, it will be easier for brands to be more likeable.
Parixit Bhattacharya
chief creative officer, TBWA group india
