A heist that nabbed more than 400,000 KitKat bars also gave the company an unexpected viral marketing moment.
On March 28, a truck carrying 12 metric tons of KitKat chocolate bars was intercepted somewhere between Poland and Italy. The thieves made off with the truck and the chocolate. Thankfully, no one was hurt in the incident.
The heist made headlines, and with the internet abuzz about the massive pre-Easter chocolate heist, KitKat decided to release a statement. The company's social media account posted its update as a graphic, using the same color scheme as KitKat bars — red background, white lettering — to confirm the heist.
“We can confirm that 12T of KitKat products were stolen while in transit between our factory in Central Italy and their destination in Poland,” the statement said. “We are working closely with local authorities and supply partners to investigate. The good news: There are no concerns for consumer safety, and supply is not affected.”
The statement kicked off a wave of memes and jokes on social media. Some users wondered if Hungary had anything to do with the heist. Others posted AI-generated videos and images depicting the crew from The Fast and The Furious hijacking a KitKat truck.
As more people engaged with the KitKat jokes, more companies and influencers joined to capitalize on the fleeting cultural moment.
Charlotte FC, the North Carolina Major League Soccer club, joked that its stadium was suddenly flush with chocolate bars in a similarly styled social media post.
“On an unrelated note, we are happy to share we will be offering roughly 413,000 KitKats at this Saturday’s match against Philadelphia at Bank of America stadium," the team said in a joke statement.
DoorDash also lifted the KitKat statement design and used it for a similar joke.
"Hey guys, DoorDash here. Due to a completely random packaging error, we have 12 tons of KitKats in our DashMarts that we can't sell," it wrote. "The good news: all you have to do is to go to your DoorDash app and add like 500-600 KitKats to your cart and this should resolve itself quickly. Thank you."
KFC offered a joke apology to KitKat, writing "sorry guys we were product testing for our 12th herb and spice."
Dennys put out its own statement, saying "whatever happened to those kitkats happened between 1:30 AM and 4:00 AM and we were very busy, no further questions."
KitKat offered its own jocular response to news agencies requesting comment.
“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 metric tons of our chocolate," the company said in its press statements.
Though the company hasn’t — and may not — release any data about how the viral moment affected its chocolate sales, a spokesperson did tell FastCompany that KitKat was grateful for the outpouring of support.
“We are actually positively surprised by the level of online engagement, and grateful that so many people are keen to support us and help fix this industry issue,” the spokesperson said.
KitKat is, of course, not the first company to spin a bad news day into positive media coverage.
Andrew Block, who owns London-based PR consultancy Andrew Bloch & Associates, told the Wall Street Journal that KFC pulled a similar trick in 2018 when the chain had to temporarily shutter locations across the U.K. due to a chicken shortage.
He said the fast-food chain took out a full-page ad in British newspapers to address the situation. Rather than a canned statement, the ad featured an empty bucket of chicken with KFC's letters rearranged to read FCK.
“Not particularly good for a chicken restaurant to run out of chicken, and it could have been a potential disaster, but they just embraced it," he told the WSJ.
