Winners & Shortlists

#BENDGATE

Short List
Title#BENDGATE
BrandNESTLÈ
Product/ServiceKITKAT
Category F02. RESPONSE/REAL-TIME ACTIVITY
Entrant Company JWT LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency JWT LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Russell Ramsey Jwt London Executive Creative Director
Barry Christie JWT London Creative Director
Matthew Watkins JWT London Creative
Joseph Kibria JWT London Creative
Pier Mattioli JWT London Designer
Toby Chiswick JWT London Social Media Director
Rosie Atkins JWT London Business Director
Neil Brice JWT London Account Director
Anne Mccreary JWT London Planning Director
Katharine O’donnell JWT London Account Manager

Creative Execution

Constantly monitoring, social and the web for moments to react to, we spotted the @unboxtherapy #bendgate video and leapt on the idea. Within 30 minutes we had a quick response that perfectly blended the bending iPhone to KITKAT’s famous ‘ Have a break, have a KITKAT’ brand equity. To mirror the bend we used a KITKAT finger snapped in two and added a little angled graphic, similar to an image on an iPhone website that conveniently made a little cheeky smiling face. All within 30 minutes of catching the @unboxtherapy film on YouTube (who of course delightfully retweeted our tweet).

KITKAT was one of the first brands to tweet the story; exploding in popularity, with over 28,000 retweets in 72 hours. After 27 hours we used the minimum Twitter media spend to increase reach and sustain the momentum. Within days we saw huge engagement rates, with 19,093 organic retweets and 8,235 promoted retweets, making it nearly twice the size of Oreo’s Dunk in the Dark Superbowl tweet. The activity also received massive PR coverage; the stories themselves shared thousands and thousands of times generating tens and tens of millions of earned media impressions. All from 30mins of quick thinking.

At the heart of KITKAT’s success is a big and enduring brand idea – to be the smile in your break. But breaks have changed over time, and we have had to evolve our approach to keep the brand relevant with an audience who increasingly take their breaks online, on their mobile and on the go. To do this, we hit upon the idea of 'moment marketing'. Seizing a moment in time, and working fast to create and curate social content around it that is fresh, topical and clever – becoming part of the a global social web culture and relevancy in people’s conversation streams. On September 24th, 2014 stories and images began to emerge, mainly from tech bloggers that Apple's iPhone 6 was bending in people's pockets. In true KITKAT style, we seized the moment to create a well-timed, simple and playful response to the #bendgate conversation.