TO ENHANCE KITKAT'S POSITIONING AS A FUN AND INNOVATIVE BRAND BUILDING ON THE ID
Category
A01. Innovation
Entrant Company
ADLUDIO London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency
ADLUDIO London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency 2
JWT LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name
Company
Position
Howard Kingston
Adludio
Chief Marketing Officer
Juliette Gilligan
Adludio
Account Manager
Andy Williams
Adludio
Technical Director
Ben Hoyle
JWT London
Data Scientist
Jacques Kotze
Adludio
Chief Operating Officer
Jenna Fitch
JWT London
Snr Global Account Director
Charlotte Humphries
JWT London
Account Manager
Barry Christie
JWT London
Creative Director
Katheryn Sutcliffe
JWT London
Global Business Director
The Brief
PlayCaptcha is a branded mini-game that replaces the CAPTCHA functionality on online forms. While CAPTCHA is the ubiquitous and necessary online security protocol for human verification, its proliferation and complexity (to beat ever-smarter web bots) results in strenuous word puzzles and frustrating experiences for web users. PlayCaptcha is a simple solution, a branded physical interaction that ensures secure online transactions yet is optimised across devices, responding to the increasingly widespread adoption of mobile touch-screens amongst all audience groups.
PlayCaptcha is designed for human behaviour and digital environments, the mini-game proves that native advertising can improve user experiences.
The technology was not created for a specific brand, it was launched in September 2013 and is in public release.
In December 2013, KitKat (Nestle, UK) set out to amplify their positioning with UK digital consumers as a ‘fun and playful brand’. Along with the agency, they presented a challenge: to communicate with online consumers across devices in an innovative and memorable way and push through the brand message ‘put a smile in their break’.
They commissioned a PlayCatcha campaign with the objective of making the mid-morning break more enjoyable, with a budget of £20,000GBP to deliver 500,000 engagements (min) in one month.
PlayCaptcha is the invention of scientists, engineers and gaming experts who aim to create enjoyable online user experiences. In doing so, the team developed a better digital advertising format that generates incremental revenues for publishers (who replace CAPTCHA’s with a branded protocol) while helping brands regain the attention of online consumers, guaranteeing targeted engagements through premium audience channels.
The technology responds to the following criteria:
1. Ensure maximum security with a game mechanism that’s easy for humans -- but impossible for bots -- to complete;
2. A creative that fits into a space similar to CAPTCHAs (maintaining user recognition and website formats);
3. Intuitive design to be solvable in 5 seconds (CAPTCHAs take 15 seconds to complete);
4. Solvable using touch-enabled gestures (to avoid poor typing experiences on mobile).
The complexity of PlayCaptcha lies in a balance between security, compatibility and simplicity. It is built using HTML and JavaScript to be compatible with 95% of web browsers. The format embeds multiple layers of security that ensures the verification process is completed by a human, by identifying and monitoring behavioural norms of humans and bots so that any irregularities in the physical response (the game interaction) create an alert.
Each PlayCaptcha is UX tested and iterated throughout the build to ensure the brand message is clearly communicated. We leverage data before campaign launch to minimise wastage and maximise results.
Our proprietary tech stack combines data management, performance metrics, optimisation, reporting dashboards and a creative framework. This gives us complete control over ad delivery across our premium publisher inventory that spans across screens and devices, and ensure integrated delivery at scale
We raised $1m in seed funding in 2013 and supplemented that with a crowdfunding round that raised an additional 500,000 in July 2014. The company will raise Series A in 2015.
The KitKat PlayCaptcha exceeded expectation by delivering 1.7%CTR and over 1,000hrs of brand interaction with target audiences during mid-morning breaktimes. The branded mini-game invited users to drag a finger along a KitKat, split the foil wrap, and trigger the iconic magical moment when the bar breaks in two and the key message appears: ‘have a break, have a KitKat’. An independent study (n=1000) concluded that ‘popular’, ‘fun’ and ‘friendly’ were the top brand associations, proving the campaign embodied the brand’s personality. Results showed 74% brand recall, 82% purchase intent and, most crucially, 67% of respondents stated that KitKat PlayCaptcha ‘put a smile on their break’.
Nestle were the first major FMCG brand to run a PlayCaptcha campaign. Since launching in late 2013, we have worked with global brands including ITV, Heinz, BBC, Sky, Unilever, Renault and P&G.
Over 2m PlayCaptchas have been completed with an average success rate of 96% (standard Captcha is 75%). 91% of people preferred PlayCaptcha to a standard CAPTCHA and 7/10 agree that it is more engaging than other forms of advertising.
With 110 billion human verification security tests completed in a year, we believe PlayCaptcha will soon replace CAPTCHA as the protocol of choice.