Back

Works : KIT KAT

Overview

As its name sounds "kitto katsu," which means "surely win" in Japanese, Kit Kat is now a byword for a good-luck charm for students preparing for school entrance exams. When we learned that not only students buy Kit Kat to wish themselves good luck but also their families and relatives give them the chocolate to send good-luck messages, we wondered if we could inspire the entire country to send students Kit Kat as a way to say "kitto katsu."

Then we came up with "Kit Kat Mail," a box of Kit Kat you can write a message on and mail to your family or friends. Kit Kat Mail was developed in the first-ever partnership between a private brand and the just-privatized Japan Post in 2009. It was sold at 20,000 post offices across the nation, making the offices another points of sales of Kit Kat bars. Kit Kat Mail sold at the Hongo branch located near Tokyo University bore an image of cherry blossoms to send cheers to students all over Japan as the country's first "sakura saku (blooming cherry trees) post office," for passing an exam is likened to the bloom of cherry blossoms.

Challenges

Kit Kat has had annual good-luck campaigns for students since 2003. Now, it is widely perceived as a "genuine good-luck brand for students." Although many similar products by competitors are on the market, only Kit Kat has deeply touched a chord with students and forged emotional bonds with them. In 2009, the seventh year of the campaign, we wondered if we could motivate not only students but also their families, friends, their teachers at school and cram school, and their grandparents in their hometowns to use Kit Kat.

Solutions

Kit Kat Mail was created in unprecedented collaboration with the Japan Post that had just been privatized. It is a new type of Kit Kat in a box you can write a message and put a stamp on to mail. The product is sold at 20,000 post offices across the country so anyone can send students good-luck messages wherever they live. Kit Kat the Good-luck Charm was reborn to be a new "medium" through which people send their hearts.

Achievement

This is how post offices have become a new sales channel for Kit Kat. In Japan where new products are launched without a respite, shelves at supermarkets and convenience stores are always overflowing with many different competing products. Kit Kat broke the mold of this competition by winning a unique sales network free from competition overnight.

Also, we successfully expanded Kit Kat user base to students' families, friends, teachers, and grandparents in their hometowns. Post offices played a significant role of a touchpoint with these users.
Kit Kat Mail born from the historic collaboration with the Japan Post attracted a lot of public attention, winning free publicity worth over 100-million-yen ad spending.

Kit Kat Mail won the Grand Prix in the media category at the 2009 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and became the first Japanese brand that had ever won the award.