Kitkat Heist Becomes Latest Example Of Companies Turning Bad Pr To Their Advantage

A heist that nabbed much than 400,000 KitKat bars besides gave nan institution an unexpected viral trading moment.

On March 28, a motortruck carrying 12 metric tons of KitKat cocoa bars was intercepted location betwixt Poland and Italy. The thieves made disconnected pinch nan motortruck and nan chocolate. Thankfully, nary 1 was wounded successful nan incident.

The heist made headlines, and pinch nan net abuzz astir nan monolithic pre-Easter cocoa heist, KitKat decided to merchandise a statement. The company's social media relationship posted its update arsenic a graphic, utilizing nan aforesaid colour strategy arsenic KitKat bars — reddish background, achromatic lettering — to corroborate nan heist.

“We tin corroborate that 12T of KitKat products were stolen while successful transit betwixt our mill successful Central Italy and their destination successful Poland,” nan connection said. “We are moving intimately pinch section authorities and proviso partners to investigate. The bully news: There are nary concerns for user safety, and proviso is not affected.”

The connection kicked disconnected a activity of memes and jokes connected societal media. Some users wondered if Hungary had thing to do pinch nan heist. Others posted AI-generated videos and images depicting nan unit from The Fast and The Furious hijacking a KitKat truck.

As much group engaged pinch nan KitKat jokes, much companies and influencers joined to capitalize connected nan fleeting taste moment.

Charlotte FC, nan North Carolina Major League Soccer club, joked that its stadium was abruptly flush pinch cocoa bars successful a likewise styled social media post.

“On an unrelated note, we are happy to stock we will beryllium offering astir 413,000 KitKats astatine this Saturday’s lucifer against Philadelphia astatine Bank of America stadium," nan squad said successful a joke statement.

DoorDash besides lifted nan KitKat connection creation and utilized it for a akin joke.

"Hey guys, DoorDash here. Due to a wholly random packaging error, we person 12 tons of KitKats successful our DashMarts that we can't sell," it wrote. "The bully news: each you person to do is to spell to your DoorDash app and adhd for illustration 500-600 KitKats to your cart and this should resoluteness itself quickly. Thank you."

KFC offered a joke apology to KitKat, writing "sorry guys we were merchandise testing for our 12th herb and spice."

Dennys put retired its ain statement, saying "whatever happened to those kitkats happened betwixt 1:30 AM and 4:00 AM and we were very busy, nary further questions."

KitKat offered its ain jocular consequence to news agencies requesting comment.

“We’ve ever encouraged group to person a break pinch KitKat—but it seems thieves person taken nan connection excessively virtually and made a break pinch much than 12 metric tons of our chocolate," nan institution said successful its property statements.

Though nan institution hasn’t — and whitethorn not — merchandise immoderate information astir really nan viral infinitesimal affected its cocoa sales, a spokesperson did show FastCompany that KitKat was grateful for nan outpouring of support.

“We are really positively amazed by nan level of online engagement, and grateful that truthful galore group are keen to support america and thief hole this manufacture issue,” nan spokesperson said.

KitKat is, of course, not nan first institution to rotation a bad news time into affirmative media coverage.

Andrew Block, who owns London-based PR consultancy Andrew Bloch & Associates, told nan Wall Street Journal that KFC pulled a akin instrumentality successful 2018 erstwhile nan concatenation had to temporarily shutter locations crossed nan U.K. owed to a chickenhearted shortage.

He said nan fast-food concatenation took retired a full-page advertisement successful British newspapers to reside nan situation. Rather than a canned statement, nan advertisement featured an quiet bucket of chickenhearted pinch KFC's letters rearranged to publication FCK.

“Not peculiarly bully for a chickenhearted edifice to tally retired of chicken, and it could person been a imaginable disaster, but they conscionable embraced it," he told nan WSJ.