From KitKat to KFC: Humour Can Be Your Secret Weapon in a PR Crisis
Always look on the bright side of life. Even when it’s the stuff of nightmares, and you’re one of the biggest brands in confectionery facing a chocolate bar shortage at *shrieks* Easter.
That was the crisis KitKat faced this week when thieves made off with 12 tons of chocolate bars in a daring raid. A scene straight out of a Jason Statham movie, precisely 413,793 KitKats mysteriously vanished while in transit in central Italy, en route to Poland, and set for distribution across Europe.
Except this was no fancy Hollywood film set. It was a real-world robbery. And a very real crisis situation for a household brand.
How to turn a communications crisis into a win was their PR team’s sole mission.
I’ve done the maths: And while it’s not quite enough to fill Wembley Stadium, that’s a tr*** load of chocolate. Enough to put the Easter Bunny out of action.
This blog post is about how humour can be your secret weapon that takes your brand from zero to hero.
Red Lights….to Green
Every light at KitKat HQ must have been flashing red the moment they found out the true scale of the heist.
KitKat’s crisis communications response kicked in: Establish the facts, assess the risks and quickly map out a strategy.
From the outset, humour played a key part in containing the damage.
Going public with news of the theft, their immediate press statement was very on-brand: “We’ve always encouraged people to have a break with KitKat, but it seems thieves have taken the message too literally and made a break with more than 12 tons of our chocolate. Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes.”
But dig a bit deeper, and their response was classic crisis comms. Beyond their playful brand voice, their messaging was crystal clear. They acknowledged the severity of the incident while reassuring customers that there would be no knock-on effects on supply and that there were no consumer safety concerns.
What they did so well was avoid downplaying the incident while still conveying their unique brand voice. In a crisis communications situation, having a strong brand presence and brand story can really work to your advantage. You can easily turn defence into offence.
Introducing a New Crisis Communications Tool: The Element of Surprise
Then, on Wednesday, which also happened to be April Fools’ Day, the company made a bold, surprise move.
At breakneck speed, they launched a live tracker for the stolen chocolate bars. An innovative new tool, the tracker allowed consumers to see in real time whether their KitKats were linked to the heist.
No April Fool’s joke: The search was on for the contraband treats and the chocolate culprits.
It was a great way to engage the public and keep the story in the headlines, which was exactly what the KitKat PR machine wanted.
The new tracker made column inches all around the world – not to mention generating a whole lorry load of love on social. Their initial post alone got over 87 million views and tens of thousands of retweets.
And it’s the gift that just keeps on giving. Since the incident, KitKat’s social media team have been running at top speed, featuring memes like ‘The Great KitKat Job’ and a spoof storyboard of the big heist.
By making light of it, they pretty much owned the story.
It was this element of surprise blended with great humour that defined the winning PR moment for KitKat.
The Brand Spin-offs
Competing brands were quick to spot the opportunity and jumped on the KitKat bandwagon.
It was all top online banter, with Ikea kindly offering a depot if one was needed, Domino’s unveiling a new ‘KitKat’ pizza and Duolingo teasing that they couldn’t read the Polish nutrition labels on the bars.
Even historic castles got in on the act. From Blenheim Palace (which had a £4.8m gold toilet stolen recently) to Currys, seemingly the world and his dog had a take on the biggest viral trend of the week, and maybe the year.
Dubbed ‘The Great KitKat Heist’, the story was a top-trending topic on social for days, which suited the company as it played to its brand strengths.
Indeed, it gave everyone a bit of light relief in a world that seems to have precious little right now.
Knowing When to Use Humour
Humour doesn’t always work in defusing a situation, so it’s about knowing when to hit the ‘H’ button in a crisis.
Obviously, not every crisis response lends itself to humour. Actually, very few do. If the incident had caused a loss of life, the response would have struck a much more serious and sombre tone.
The nature of the product also shaped the response. The stakes were low. It wasn’t a life-saving medical drug. It wasn’t a truck full of weapons. It was candy.
Their response was very much in keeping with their brand. The humour aligned perfectly with their cheeky brand voice, and they used their ‘take a break’ tagline artfully in their press lines.
Some brands are more serious, and this soft-touch approach just wouldn’t have worked because the public wouldn’t have found it authentic. Any response to a crisis communication situation has to be human and true to the brand’s core values.
Humour has to be carefully deployed. Consider every angle and assess the chance of a consumer backlash. It can really backfire and inflame a situation, so be very mindful of whether the conditions are right for such a response.
KFC F*CK Campaign
The KitKat response was a genius move straight out of the KFC playbook.
The fast-food chain deftly used humour when it found itself in a pickle back in 2018. A supply-side issue left them without chicken, forcing them to close many of their outlets. Many unimpressed customers took to social media to voice their displeasure with the #chickencrisis hashtag, and the media were quick to pick up the bad news story.
What KFC did next is the stuff of legend in crisis communications. They used humour to great effect in their ‘FCK’ apology newspaper advert, which featured an empty KFC bucket and rearranged the letters of its name to spell ‘FCK’.
Their quick thinking showed us how to turn a communications crisis into a win. KFC is known for being tongue-in-cheek, and again, this was an example of brand voice tying in with the response.
From the KitKat heist to the KFC no-chicken drama, fortune favours the brave, and in both cases, that bravery was well rewarded.
Get a Crisis Communications Plan
While KitKat couldn’t have planned for such a strange scenario as the truck heist story and its spin-offs, their response shows a high-level of strategic crisis communications planning.
As an experienced comms planner, I recommend having well-drilled plans in place to help you when the crisis hits. While it won’t make you fully bulletproof, it will help mitigate the worst of it and shield you from reputational damage.
Nestle’s first response was immediate, factual, clear, and true to their brand. Their press statement was a well-executed balancing act that recognised the humour without downplaying the incident. They got the tone right and ensured the important, serious messages still reached their audience.
In a crisis, you will need a plan to see you through the toughest bits. A well-crafted crisis comms plan will be your friend when a crisis hits.
Things can escalate quickly in a crisis, so covering the necessary groundwork beforehand will make your organisation much more resilient to such threats when they arise.
Your reputation depends on getting the basics right when things go wrong – not doing so will devalue your brand’s most precious currency.
Don’t take a chance with your company’s future by being unprepared.
Be the hero in your story. Get a crisis comms plan.
We can help you plan your crisis communications response. Get in touch for expert advice!
You can read our previous post on crisis communications here.
