Signs for a KitKat Break Are Hiding in Plain Sight

Adding some tasty joy between 9-5

KitKat’s OOH campaign from Courage replaces dashes in time ranges with candy-bar segments to encourage people to slow down and take a break. 

Whether it’s during work, travel, streaming or watching a sporting event, is there ever really a bad time for a KitKat? “9-5,” “Ep.8-Ep.9,” “7th inning-8th inning” and “YYZ-JFK” ads each have the dashes replaced. (And special thanks to Rush for teaching me all about YYZ.)

“The dash is hiding in plain sight,” says Joel Holtby, founder and co-CCO at Courage. “It marks the space between two things, which is exactly what KitKat has always stood for. And when you see it through that lens, the shape suddenly feels familiar. It mirrors the iconic form of a KitKat bar. Once you make that connection, you can’t unsee it. The dash becomes what it always was: a break.”

The campaign is running across out-of-home, digital, social and streaming platforms.

“KitKat has always been about celebrating the importance of taking a break, but what makes the brand so enduring is how flexible that idea is in culture,” adds Tracey Cooke, CMO at Nestlé Canada. “This campaign finds a fresh way to express something people already know and love about KitKat, while showing that the brand continues to understand how people live, move and break today.”