KitKat

Image

The Client

With more than 2,000 brands present in 186 countries worldwide, Nestlé is the world’s largest food and beverage company. Its brand KitKat is the first global chocolate brand to use 100% sustainably sourced cocoa through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and Rainforest Alliance.

The Situation

KitKat wanted to create a consistent brand narrative — one that was flexible and modular enough to meet market needs and capitalize on current search demand. Its goal was to build meaningful data pools, enhancing consumer engagement to recruit the next wave of 18- to 30-year-old KitKat consumers. In essence, the company wanted to establish the blueprint for KitKat operating in a digital world, building the iconic brand across growing chocolate segments.

The Challenge

The brand wanted to expand new growth drivers, deepening its relationship with younger consumers. To do this, it needed to accelerate and consolidate the KitKat brand’s digital presence. But with most of the communication being driven in local markets, there was a varying level of consistency in who the brand was communicating with, what the content priorities were, and how, when and where the brand should engage with customers. 

The Solution

KitKat partnered with marketing communications agency Wunderman Thompson, which recommended an audience-first approach to help create relevant and impactful communication. Wunderman Thompson took a data-driven approach with extensive qualitative and quantitative inputs to inform the content strategy, analyzing millions of audience data points. With the priority audiences in place, the team further expanded the inputs through consumer intent modeling, social listening, web analytics, trends, and competitor analysis.

Strategic Content Territories (SCTs) provided Nestlé KitKat with the global strategic direction for campaigns and always-on KitKat content, allowing the brand to become known for content areas that build long-term brand equity. And the updated website included additional features and content experiences that enhance consumers' relationship with the brands.

In partnership with Wunderman Thompson and Acquia, KitKat created a new digital platform that leveraged a modular architecture to drive scale, allowing the brand to move from chaos to order. Acquia Cloud Platform lets KitKat deploy to multiple regions in a consistent and predictable way. It provides a connected ecosystem with consistent content development against key territories, amplifying the impact of campaign activities. 

KitKat selected Drupal and open source solutions for four key reasons:

1. The ability to maximize the budget: KitKat preferred to spend money on building the best experience and features for the consumer – not on software licenses.
2. The community: KitKat was drawn to the innovation, security, and evolution made possible by a passionate global community.
3. Flexibility and transparency: The powerful thought leadership, amplified by source code access and a thriving contribution culture, appealed to Nestlé KitKat.
4. The global standard: Nestlé has adopted Drupal as the CMS standard, which has allowed not only for the ability to leverage the amazing global community, but also the internally created community.

The Results

KitKat is one of the first Nestlé brands to go through the end-to-end digital transformation process, setting standards for the confectionery category and the business overall. The 18-month journey that spans 14 countries set the brand on the path toward driving genuine consumer engagement and growth. Compared to 2020, when this transformation began, KitKat now sees 1,000% more web traffic and three times as many pageviews, with half the bounce rate.

Through an audience-first approach, KitKat can now build value with its consumers by making relevant, emotional connections. By destroying silos and beginning to work together collaboratively across the globe, KitKat has been transformed into a digital-native brand. Local markets are supported in amplifying executions of global e-business activations, such as website, data, content, audiences, and e-commerce, and through cost efficiency and scale, KitKat expects to grow bigger, bolder, and even more global.

The new website is core to KitKat’s digital ecosystem, creating a consistent global brand identity and relevant content for the brand’s audiences while paving the way to win with search by driving high SEO scores. Nestlé guided and empowered its brand builders to grow KitKit as an iconic brand that delivers exceptional business results through a strong, interconnected KitKat experience for consumers powered by digital and executed where it matters most.