2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Challenge & Objective

One of KITKAT’s biggest challenges is to show the world - and more specifically a whole new generation of chocolate fans - that it is much more than just a classic candy bar. They want to showcase that every single bar is made with real ingredients, and real craft, and real care.

Beyond that, they also wanted to show that KITKAT can mean many things to many different people, offering a customized experience that is grounded in chocolate. In other words, KITKAT’s challenge was to reshape how people thought about the brand and the bar.

Insights & Strategy

The big challenge with that challenge, is that people today don’t want to be told the story of a brand’s evolution, they want to help write it. So the team decided to bring KITKAT’s chocolate retail experience store concept to Canada.

Execution

Every aspect of the Chocolatory concept store was redesigned, from the business plan to the overall experience. It then anchored all aspects in one big transformative idea focussed on customers’ creations and their involvement in the actual process of making a KITKAT bar.

And that idea was the first ever KITKAT Chef’s Table, which brought the previously behind-the scenes creation process to the centre of the brand experience and gave guests a chance to really immerse themselves in KITKAT. The agency trained head chocolatiers to provide intimate guided chocolate creation sessions, which you could reserve online.

The Chef’s Table was central to the store design, acting as a beacon in the mall and store, drawing passing customers into the story. The rest of the store was designed to compliment this commitment to craft and quality, feeling like more of a KITKAT restaurant than a KITKAT store.

Beyond the space, we also designed the actual product offerings and the packaging, the merchandise and the ecommerce platform, the back-end service and the overall customer experience, mapping flows from a multitude of touch points all the way to the Chef’s Table or cashier and beyond.

Result

After four months of being open, Covid-19 hit and the world had a break, so it’s hard to fully gauge the success, But, up until that point, the store was truly killing it, and the overall experience that was designed was central to it all.

From day one the store regularly saw extended line-ups to purchase, often extending down the hall of the store, and, more importantly, the Chef’s Table experience was fully booked for the first three months. In addition, the launch alone garnered 20.6 million earned media impressions plus 14.4 million organic social impressions. Oh, and it’s got some great reviews on Yelp.

Credits

Amin Todai - Chief Creative Officer
Max Sawka - Creative Director
Jeffrey Rae - Design Director
Danica Enns - Art Director
Katya Garipova - Art Director
Paul De La Merced - Art Director
Dario Petruzzi - Writer
Sanjay Mangar - Studio Director
Rudy Cho - Studio Designer
Laura Russell - Business Lead
Patricia Tay - Business Lead
Jamie Kaiser - Videographer
Model Citizen - Interior Design
Sarah Spence, Managing Director (Narrative)
Cathy Mitchell, VP (Narrative)
Kylee Berencsi, Account Director (Narrative)
Denise Roy, Senior Account Manager (Narrative)
Jessica Leroux, Account Manager (Narrative)
Gigi Rabnett, Event Producer (Narrative)
Olivia Crane, Event Coordinator (Narrative)