KIT KAT STUDIO

TitleKIT KAT STUDIO
BrandNESTLÉ AUSTRALIA
Product / ServiceKIT KAT
CategoryB06. Use of Customer in-Store Experience
EntrantENSEMBLE Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation ENSEMBLE Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production ENSEMBLE Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Our Ensemble of creatively wired specialists Ensemble Australia Entire Team

The Campaign

Introducing: The KIT KAT Studio. A pop-up concept store where consumers became creators with close to 1,600 unique combinations to create their own special break. KITKAT Studio was a delicious testing ground of new flavours and a global brand-first where fans had a say on everything from flavours to design, to what they named their masterpiece. What would you choose? Milk or dark chocolate? Pink rose petals or salted caramel popcorn? This tasty procrastination was an outcome of months of planning, piles of documentation and hours of testing. Upon arrival, consumers could choose from the following: KITKAT Create Your Break where consumers created their unique flavour combination. These personalised bars were made to order, delivered in bespoke personalised packaging. KITKAT Special Editions including four never-before-tasted gourmet KITKAT flavours each week. KITKAT Special Edition “Caramelized Anna” - crafted by award winning dessert chef Anna Polyviou from Sydney’s 5 star Shangri-La Hotel.

Creative Execution

The KIT KAT Studio occupied a 28m2 space in Westfield Sydney. From concept to completion, we worked closely with KIT KAT Australia on all elements including fit-out, design, staffing, digital & POS. Given we asked people to pay over 4 times the price for their customised break, every touchpoint needed to be premium. The space housed a beautiful front-of-house chocolatier display and a visible working kitchen which accommodated on-site production. To help streamline the custom creation process, we developed a bespoke ordering interface and digital point of sale system that facilitated the personalisation, ordering and payment process. In addition, we created and constructed the store’s visual identity, covering everything from bench-tops to the digital customising system. After its success, we tested a long-term format securing an 11 week, 128m2 site at Melbourne Central, heightened with the addition of an online site to pre-order deliveries or pickup for Christmas.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The experience quickly became “the thing to do” with the likes of Pedestrian,Time Out and Mashable eager to spread the word. Sentiment across each media mention was 100% positive. Despite Australia’s supermarket duopoly discounting chocolate bars every week, consumers quickly told us we were onto a sweet thing. Over five weeks in Sydney: Sales targets were exceeded by 230%. The Studio outsold Woolworths Sydney Town Hall store (KITKAT Australia’s largest retailer) by 10 times the average weekly units, at a premium price. Inspired 60% of creators to share their experience on social media. Melbourne continued this theme with: Significant positive movement on key imagery statements, such as “a brand I would pay more for”. Future purchase intention tracking 30% higher amongst Studio shoppers. The data captured through the ordering system provided invaluable real world insight to guide potential product variants, delivering a true marketing solution, not just an advertising win.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The KIT KAT Studio embodies the essence of what bringing a brand to life is all about. Baked right into the core of the activation is giving consumers the ability to not only interact or participate in the brand but to control and personalise the experience from break to bite. While some activations may achieve this, we took it further by creating and executing the concept to enable personalisation for an unpersonalisable product, resulting in scarcity that fuelled social currency.

For our 25-35 year old audience, breaks are hard to come by. Our approach needed to blend the opportunity to make magic with social gratification. After a crash course in chocolate making we arrived at the concept of a pop-up store, enabling not only consumers to sample flavours with a premium experience but providing control over product testing and price. Whilst logical, pop-up stores alone are a bit passé… we needed something more than a bit of theming for people to engage and talk about the experience and make the investment worthwhile. These observations fuelled our experience essentials; - Personalisation: Increasing shareability by providing an experience they have a vested interest in. - Limited: Creating scarcity equates to people willing to pay a premium. - Premiumness: Delivering a mediocre product & relying on ‘novelty factor’ would be unacceptable.