
Kit Kat's homepage is currently a parody of Android announcement page - alexlitov
http://www.kitkat.com/#/home
======
nostromo
I was laughing at this parody. Then, I found myself wanting a KitKat.

Perhaps there's something to this presentation style after all!

~~~
baddox
When it comes to a chunk of sugar as delicious as a KitKat, all they really
need to do is plant the word "KitKat" in your brain and you'll want one. Or
maybe it's just me.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
I find the thought of dead babies in Africa tends to put me off my
confectionary.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
You got an upvote from me simply for knowing about it but perhaps you want to
provide more references to Nestles baby formula history etc

Start here :
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott)

~~~
devbin
Doesn't matter in the US. As Kitkat sold in the US is made by Hershey.
[http://www.hersheys.com/kitkat.aspx](http://www.hersheys.com/kitkat.aspx)

~~~
sc00ter
Which presumably means it's covered with the same disgusting fake chocolate
that the rest of Hershey products are made with, which means it's not really a
KitKat...

~~~
baddox
Everyone outside the US says that, and I agree that _nice_ European chocolate
is notably different than Hershey's chocolate, but I've had both American and
European KitKats and they taste identical.

------
untog
This honestly makes me wonder: what is the point of web sites for stuff like
KitKat? Clearly, they can replace the entire thing for the purposes of a joke
so it can't be that high up there.

Who visits those sites? What do they do on them? The Nestle/Hersheys site,
sure. Standard corporate stuff. But a site specifically for KitKat?

EDIT: there seems to be some confusion in the replies. I am not talking about
this joke web site that was put up today. I am talking about the normal
kitkat.com that has been around forever.

~~~
shin_lao
People will visit the web page because it's funny. It features a lot of
pictures of Kit Kat. Geeks love junk food and might serve themselves a treat,
a why not, a Kit Kat just after watching this.

This process is called advertisement. Guess what? It works.

~~~
untog
No, I mean the normal page. Not this joke one. kitkat.com has existed for a
long time, and before today was just filled with normal promotional stuff.

------
marcamillion
Even the 'small print' at the end is awesome:

 _Wow this really is small print isn 't it? Look how tiny it is. How are you
even reading this? Come to think of it, why are you even reading this?? This
is no way to spend your break! You've just read all of that stuff about how
awesome the KITKAT 4.4 is and you still haven't run out and got one? Wow,
tough crowd. As soon as I finish writing this I'm gonna get one from my secret
stash and go drink milk through it like a straw. I have to keep my stash
secret because my grandmother looks at me all puppy eyed if I don't share it
with her. Is it still puppy eyed if it's your gran? I suppose it would be gran
eyed? Or granny eyed? Let's go with granny eyed. I feel like we've just coined
a new phrase. Where's the 'trademark' symbol on this keyboard? Ah here it is
™. GrannyEyed™. I wonder if that's legally binding? Hey, let's see if we can
get it trending! #GrannyEyed. Tweeted. The Internet has it now. It's out of
our hands. I feel like we've just started something epic. Ok, well this was a
lovely chat. I'm gonna go and grab that KITKAT now. Fancy a break?_

------
gojomo
Try to bring a standard-formula KitKat to a warm-weather climate, and you'll
realize the promises of "Universal Compatibility" and "Unlimited Stand-By
Time" are dangerous, messy puffery.

Where's the FTC when we need them?

(KitKat does use a different melt-resistant formula in hot places like
Malaysia:
[http://www.nestleprofessional.com/uk/en/SiteArticles/Pages/F...](http://www.nestleprofessional.com/uk/en/SiteArticles/Pages/Facts_About_KitKat.aspx?jse=0)
)

------
jonli1
Their js is not uglified. Here's the easteregg. function initEasterEgg() { var
pattern = "72658669656682696575"; //haveabreak var userPattern = "";

    
    
            var code = "38384040373937396665";
            var userCode = "";
    
            $(document).keydown(function(event) {
                var p = pattern.substr(userPattern.length,2);
                var c = code.substr(userCode.length,2);
                var r = Math.floor((Math.random()*3)+1);
    
                if(event.which == p) {
                    userPattern += event.which;
                    if(userPattern === pattern) {
                        $( "body" ).append( "<div id='eeDroid'><img src='assets/desktop/images/misc/droid" + r + ".png' /></div>" );
                        $('#eeDroid').animate({bottom:'0px'},500).animate({left:'-600px'},2000, function() {
                            $(this).remove();
                        });
                        userPattern = "";
                    }
                } else { userPattern = ""; }
    
                if(event.which == c) {
                    userCode += event.which;
                    if(userCode === code) {
                        $( "body" ).append( "<div id='eeDroid'><img src='assets/desktop/images/misc/droid" + r + ".png' /></div>" );
                        $('#eeDroid').animate({bottom:'0px'},500).animate({left:'-600px'},2000, function() {
                            $(this).remove();
                        });
                        userCode = "";
                    }
                } else { userCode = ""; }
            });
        }

~~~
bsimpson
As hinted in the comment, just type "haveabreak".

------
kanja
Love the easter egg - try "haveabreak" or "up up down down left right left
right b a"

:)

~~~
sandbochs
Check out jQuery Raptorize.

~~~
nilliams
Konami fun can also be found on wired.co.uk, sometimes in raptor form, other-
times not.

------
kbar13
"2 megabites, 4 megabites, or a chunky bites option"

I died.

~~~
sobering
This definitely got me as well.

------
voltagex_
This is great marketing. The corresponding Google page is good, too.
[http://www.android.com/kitkat/](http://www.android.com/kitkat/)

------
olalonde
I've always wondered how those companies (Nestle in this case) can measure the
effectiveness of such one off advertising campaigns. After all, more people
might buy Kit Kats in the following days but since consumers do not buy
directly from Kit Kat, it might take some time before retailers realize they
should order larger quantities of Kit Kat and due to this delay Nestle might
never know which advertising campaign was successful. Does anyone know how
this works?

~~~
unreal37
I've worked on the web site for a few big global brands. Believe it or not,
there are companies out there (like Spire [1]) that can link web visitors to
actual in-store sales. I was involved with a client last year who ran a report
matching registered users from their site to in store buyers, to measure how
much their users actually spend on their products. It's hit and miss, frankly.

But for a campaign like this, I am sure the web and marketing teams are
overjoyed if their web traffic doubles over the course of a week. That would
be counted as a major win. Marketing drives to measurable metrics (like hits)
and we let the sales teams worry about sales.

Also, there are analytics people using tools tonight counting mentions across
the web. How many impressions through mentions is huge in the marketing space.
"50 million people heard about the new KitKat homepage through news articles!"
This campaign will be submitted to Cannes next year and possibly win a Gold
Lion.

[1] [http://www.spirenow.com/](http://www.spirenow.com/)

------
MiguelHudnandez
You don't launch a "specially marked wrapper" without two marketing teams
talking to each other for months beforehand, so this shouldn't be a big
surprise.

But still, very cute.

------
mcv
This is utter genius! Best product tie-in ever. Nice scrolling effects too.
Almost enough to make me buy a KitKat.

------
drewblaisdell
Great parody.

I suppose this is a relevant article to attach this question. What is the
general consensus on using the scroll event to trigger animations/content
changes?

I am working on an article that uses animations to help explain scientific
processes and triggering these with the scroll position seems to offer many
advantages over having the user keep clicking a next button. I know where they
are on the page and can display the relevant part of an animation. This style
gets a lot of hate on HN, which is why I want to ask: is there a better way?

~~~
simantel
Does it get much hate, though? Snowfall and The Jockey, the NYT pieces, use
scroll to trigger pretty much everything, and they received tons of attention
both here and in more mainstream media outlets.

~~~
drewblaisdell
The interactive NYT pieces get lots of attention and praise, but I remember
seeing at least one critic on HN write "is scrolling the new Flash?" and a lot
of discussion about how the scrolling animation in articles tends to be
superfluous.

------
lquist
The video is clearly a sendup of an Apple product announcement.

~~~
fudged71
It reminded me of the Mac Pro product page [http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-
pro](http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-pro)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Right! Especially the animated dissection of the KitKat bar and copy like
“Thanks to its world-renowned, tri-core, wafer thin CPU with full chocolate
coverage.”.

------
prawn
It's not a parody so much as it's coordinated marketing that has thoroughly
bewitched Google's target market. If it were a natural parody, I think I'd be
more receptive.

------
marcamillion
Wow...I am surprised how awesome this is. I genuinely feel like going out and
buying a KitKat.

I wonder what the economics of this campaign looks like.

Did Google pay Nestle, vice versa or no money change hands?

This is awesome....I love to see a big company having fun.

~~~
raarky
Google approached Nestle. No money changed hands according to this article

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938)

~~~
marcamillion
Wow....talk about a marketing coup by Nestle.

Any company that was approached by Google for something like this - if they
never took it...would likely be a very dumb move.

------
chris_wot
"Don't be evil" and "Nestlé", not a combination you see that often.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
More info. for those unaware of just how evil a coporation Nestlé is:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott)
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaJjPRwExO8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaJjPRwExO8)

~~~
lake99
Oh come on! Be fair. This is the greenpeace website, not "corporate
propaganda":
[http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/Swe...](http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/Sweet-
success-for-Kit-Kat-campaign/)

If you want a news report, you could read
[http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/05/nestle-greenpeace-
sourci...](http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/05/nestle-greenpeace-sourcing-of-
palm-oil/) instead.

------
methodin
I'd like to see more clever marketing and partnerships like this. It is
certainly more interesting than bland marketing and targeted ads.

~~~
spyder
and it isn't blocked by AdBlock

------
lnanek2
Wow, the KitKat page is much better actually. Clouds fly by, candy gets
chomped and rotates. An Android peeks down from an edge. Android page was just
scrolling through some static images.

------
dman
Its 2013 and I still cant scroll a webpage smoothly.

~~~
sp332
Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.

------
dsego
Reminds me more of the apple's mac pro page [http://www.apple.com/mac-
pro/](http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/).

------
kposehn
Brilliant.

Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

I'm still chuckling at the "tiny print" at the bottom of the page. I'm going
to go check and see if #GrannyEyed is trending now.

------
fredley
The execution is flawless, I wonder if Google lent them some engineers for
this?

------
yellow
I just realized how important the number 4 in this whole deal. #classickitkat

~~~
Taig
Even the page itself comes around with 4.4 MB of data to load. And the mobile
version still weighs 2.2 MB ...

------
RyJones
Do watch the video at the end.

~~~
unoti
My favourite part of it is how he pronounces portrait as "Pour Trait". It
makes me wish I'd learned to speak English where they talk like that, or it at
least makes me laugh.

~~~
interpol_p
How else do you pronounce portrait?

~~~
stan_rogers
In most of North America, at least, it would be something like por'trit (the
second syllable is much de-emphasized, but the vowel is closer to a short i
than a schwa).

------
brokenparser
The site is beautifully written using the latest HTML10 standard.

------
bouk
I like the fine print

The small print Wow this really is small print isn't it? Look how tiny it is.
How are you even reading this? Come to think of it, why are you even reading
this?? This is no way to spend your break! You've just read all of that stuff
about how awesome the KITKAT 4.4 is and you still haven't run out and got one?
Wow, tough crowd.

As soon as I finish writing this I'm gonna get one from my secret stash and go
drink milk through it like a straw. I have to keep my stash secret because my
grandmother looks at me all puppy eyed if I don't share it with her. Is it
still puppy eyed if it's your gran? I suppose it would be gran eyed? Or granny
eyed? Let's go with granny eyed. I feel like we've just coined a new phrase.
Where's the 'trademark' symbol on this keyboard? Ah here it is ™. GrannyEyed™.
I wonder if that's legally binding? Hey, let's see if we can get it trending!
#GrannyEyed. Tweeted. The Internet has it now. It's out of our hands. I feel
like we've just started something epic. Ok, well this was a lovely chat. I'm
gonna go and grab that KITKAT now. Fancy a break?

------
lake99
Looks like Android has done it too:
[http://www.android.com/kitkat/](http://www.android.com/kitkat/)

~~~
ctdonath
Nothing says "solid, responsive, enterprise-grade, consumer-pleasing data
access" like candy.

(Yes, I know this complaint is old, and dessert/snack is the Android naming
theme. Nobody is buying in because of the meme; a lot of people are opting out
because of it.)

~~~
Kylekramer
Could be way off, but I find the idea that people are opting out of Android
due to dessert names very unlikely. Seems roughly equivalent to OS X (recently
retired) cat names and I don't remember people staying away from Mac cause
snow leopards don't convey the advantages of owning a Mac. Especially since
I'd bet a vanishingly small amount of people who own Androids know the thing
that runs their phone even has a code name. Google doesn't even sell Android
in boxes with jelly beans on them like Apple used to do with cats.

------
tomelders
One of the worlds most evil companies made a funny website.

~~~
9999
Nestle or Google?

~~~
tomelders
Hmmm, good point.

------
eagsalazar2
Pretty good. A couple distracting details though: (1) disgusting closeup of
girl's nostril, (2) Nestle is run by f-ing Satan! Associating with them in any
way is a bad move for a company that supposedly follows a rule of "don't be
evil".

------
shire
Kit Kat's rival, [http://www.twix.com/](http://www.twix.com/). Personally Kit
Kat is not even that good, high in sugar or something. I think twix is much
tastier, nevertheless I think this is a brilliant design.

------
ChuckMcM
I thought this was really clever, and interestingly desperate. Maybe I've been
around too long but there is always a warning twitch I get when tech companies
get too cute. Sort of a "you're really trying too hard here."

I enjoyed the parody, I agree with others here that it was totally planned by
the Google team ahead of time, but the shift in pure marketroidness, well it
was just kinda "eww."

------
tga
Kit Kat's homepage is currently a monstrosity. Scrolling down the page pushes
a new history URL every half page, using the back button is then essentially
broken (on Firefox at least) and actually getting back to the page that
unfortunately sent you there requires something like 20 clicks.

Not so bad joke otherwise, but the history hijacking made it a crappy
experience and I couldn't close the tab quickly enough.

~~~
ajross
Honestly: you're being a snob. The page is designed to be scrolled down once,
chuckled at, and closed. And I did, and it works for me. Sitting on our high
horses and demanding that Nestle's corporate IT department churn out a site
worthy of YC-driven-multi-round-venture-funding is counterproductive and
unkind. They had a cute idea, probably on short notice, and they got it done.

I will say that I'm actually really liking this sort of whimsy. It's
distressingly rare in the bigcorp world (even in candy, I guess) to see
companies poke fun at their established products like this. I like it.

I still won't eat them though.

~~~
ctdonath
_and closed._

If you didn't "Open In New Tab" the link, and value the current tab's browsing
history, this will be very annoying via "back back back back back aw crap how
far must I go back back click-hold-back good grief click meh that was fun
until it wasn't."

~~~
mcv
My browser can display the entire history and allows me to skip right to where
I want to go.

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
Mine too, tga you should just update your browser and stop being a party
pooper.

------
mortenjorck
This is beautifully executed and quite fun, but it's not riffing on the
Android announcement page nearly as much as it is on Apple's Mac Pro
announcement page: [http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/](http://www.apple.com/mac-
pro/)

The Android page is a brief history of the OS, while the Mac Pro page is an
animated product brochure, which is what this really is.

------
lcedp
Android KitKat is the first product placement I remember which doesn't annoy
me. In fact I fancy it.

------
Miserlou57
Dear God do not try to hit "back" on that page having scrolled all the way
through...

------
r3m6
Parody? This is real:
[http://www.android.com/kitkat/](http://www.android.com/kitkat/)

(IMHO a bad move for the Android brand, unless teens are their new main
target. But let's see...)

------
HCIdivision17
Today I learned the KitKat bar can be used as a straw and that the wrapper can
tear to only expose on finger. If this is true, I may very well stock up for
use with my coffee at the office!

------
triplesec
It still tastes rubbish and is full of sugar. Not food, not cool.

~~~
nilliams
Your opinion, personally I'm a sucker for a peanut KitKat Chunky.

------
blibble
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOrkLxOBoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOrkLxOBoY)
is a very well done parody!

------
mehmehshoe
Was I the only one thinking that video at the end was taking a dig at Mark
Shuttleworth? Great bit of funny marketing regardless.

------
aram
WTF at the small print at the bottom of the page

~~~
thorum
That's the best part.

------
programminggeek
I wish this page style would just go away.

------
Mikeb85
Omg, now I have a craving for Kit Kats. And the webpage is hilarious and
fantastic...

------
jbkkd
This crashes the browser on Windows Phone 7.5. Am I not allowed to have a
kitkat?

------
kyro
You're a fool if you think Kit Kat isn't also conspiring with the NSA.

------
NathanthePie
Good gosh. Kudos to Nestle and Android, but I cannot stand that website
design.

------
rch
I wish I could up-vote the page directly. That's quite a lot of fun.

------
marginalboy
They messed up my "back" button. Party foul.

------
aniro
It is fascinating to look at the execution of the Google page vs the Nestle
page.

Seems like a near perfect real world example of "HOW TO" and "HOW NOT TO"
accomplish modern web design.

~~~
lmartel
Which one is which?

------
cmircea
This is absolutely fucking brilliant. Loved it!

------
iguana
This is a very clever parody of Android phone marketing. Buying a KitKat to
test compatibility.

------
dutchrapley
100% awesome.

------
natemcguire
great marketing campaign.

------
kken
It almost crashed my firefox. wtf.

