Kit Kat’s - ‘Your Break, Your Rules’ Campaign Missing The Mark

In early 2024, Kit Kat has started to roll out their global marketing campaign - Your Break, Your Rules. The general premise of the campaign is to build a strong connection with a Gen Z demographic through making them feel like they are setting the rules. Young people have always wanted to be trend setters and rule breakers, Gen Z are no different. In fact Gen Z seem to be particularly anti-establishment and against the status quo.

Staying Relevant

All product based brands need to continually innovate in order to ensure their products talk to the next line of consumers. In Kit Kat’s case they need to increase the purchasing demand from the Gen Z population, to ensure the future profitability of the Kit Kat brand. Therefore they have created this marketing campaign dedicated towards the Gen Z population.

This is where Kit Kat’s error comes in. Their current adverts for the ‘Your Break, Your Rules’ campaign features actors from the Gen Z demographic, eating their Kit Kat in the way they want to, without judgement or questions from others. This is not inherently wrong, however it is a wasted opportunity for the Kit Kat brand. If anything it shows how little understanding the Kit Kat marketing team has of the Gen Z population. The advert focuses on a very surface level concept of Gen Z doing things differently.

The advert:

Missed Opportunity

Kit Kat missed an easy opportunity here to delve deeper into the Gen Z mindset, what motivates them, how they feel about certain topics. You never want to go political with these types of campaign because it makes your brand decisive. However, one topic that Gen Z feels very strong about is that they are being over worked and under paid. Gen Z pushes back against working harder because they are tired of hearing “Just Work Harder” from their Boomer managers, who bought a house for $80,000 in 2010. (Which is now worth $2.3m)

This strong emotional conflict between Gen Z and older generations is the building blocks for an ideal advertising campaign.

The Idea

Kit Kat could run an advert, whereby a Gen Z employee is only 20 minutes into her 60 minute lunch break. She takes out a Kit Kat to enjoy, as she is about the bite into the Kit Kat, her aggressive and rude Boomer boss walks into the lunch room. The boss immediately tells her, how she has had enough of a lunch break and should be getting back to work by now. The Gen Z employee, smirks and says “no” before taking the bite of her Kit Kat as she wanted to do originally before she was rudely interrupted. The advert then fades out and reads “Your Break, Your Rules”.

Why This Idea Works

This advert would connect directly with the Gen Z population, who would feel empowered and heard by this advert. Therefore associating the Kit Kat brand with doing things your way, and pushing back against oppressively Boomers or older generations who are telling Gen Z what to do. The advert also creates a double meaning for the marketing campaign “Your Break, Your Rules”, the double meaning comes from the perspective that the rules of both the employees lunch break and the breaking of the Kit Kat should be dictated by the Gen Z person in the ad.

Final Thoughts

The current ad campaign by Kit Kat won’t be doing anything more than getting the brand name and logo infront of thousands of young people, but simply putting your brand infront of them is not good enough anymore. With the rise of social media platforms like Tik Tok and content creators like Mr Beast, marketing cannot just simply tell people what to think. Advertising needs to make people feel emotions which align with their values and beliefs.