KitKats

From the Department of Not Every Thought is a Good Thought.

WSJ.com - Flavor Experiment for KitKat Leaves Nestlé With a Bad Taste


Flavor Experiment for KitKat Leaves Nestlé With a Bad Taste
KitKat bars have been among the best-selling candies in Britain since they were invented here in the 1930s. Forty-seven of the chocolate-covered wafers are eaten every second in the United Kingdom, KitKat says.

So it was natural for its maker, Nestlé SA, to apply to KitKat a marketing strategy that is becoming increasingly popular at food companies world-wide: extending a popular brand into new flavors and styles. The world's biggest food company brought a hotshot executive in from Australia in 2003 to find ways to add variety to the basic KitKat brand in the U.K.

Over the course of the next year, the company rolled out a dizzying array of new KitKats. For the summer months, it launched strawberries and cream, passion fruit and mango and even red berry versions. In the winter came “Christmas pudding” and tiramisu, which contained real wine and marscapone. Even though Britons never fully embraced the Atkins diet craze, the company launched a low-carb version.

The experiments flopped. In just two years, KitKat's overall sales in the U.K. dropped 18%, to $253 million for the 52 weeks ending in April. Nestlé recently abandoned virtually all of its exotic flavors. The executive in charge of the gambit has been replaced. And Nestlé's experience has become a lesson in the perils of trying to push new versions of much-loved brands too hard. “You could call it hyperventilation,” Peter Brabeck, Nestlé's chief executive recently told reporters.

Sometimes not doing anything is preferable.

Parenthetical note: I actually love KitKat's, but haven't eaten one in years. Being a health nut has its disadvantages.

Tags: Advertising