Tim’s Ramblings

Another long day at the office today. Did some shopping on the way home. Ate a quick dinner at the mall’s food court. Took a 1.5 hour break and now work e-mail is starting up. No rest really…. Ah well.

But that’s not the point of this post. I thought today I’d tell you readers about a little known story concerning a pretty common candy that most people in the US probably don’t know about. Actually I told this to a friend today and I thought it’ll make a good post :)

In Japan, many companies from outside including Nestle tried to break into the market dominated by Pocky (^_^). Turns out though, most American style choclate treats are far far FAR too sweet for the standard Japanese tastes. Even our Meiji Almond Chocolates are sweet but not THAT sweet. One of the candies that had a hard time here in Japan was Kit Kat. It’s been here for years and years but it never gained a big following.

This all changed though when someone, a marketing genius really, realized that the Japanese pronounciation for Kit Kat - “Kitto Katto” - sounds similar to “Kitto Katsu” or “Hopefully Win” (but in this case “kitto” is more than hopeful but more like a “most likely”). This person then marketed Kit Kat bars during the juken season in Japan where kids go crazy studying for tests to get into HS and College as a good luck gift that parents and such can give to the kids.

This worked like a champ. Since then Kit Kat realized that, by doing “limited edition” version of their candy, their sales can stay on the up and up.

Since then, during Valentines they will come out with special valentines edition packaging for their dark chocolate bars (here the girls give the boys chocolate and the boys are supposed to like things bitter), during cherry blossom season they also change the packaging and do a cherry flavor and such. During the winter you see limited edition white Kit Kats. These are NOT the white chocolate ones you can find the US but they are actually milk flavored and it promotes the dairy industry in Hokkaido. In the summer time most recently they have come out wiith melon Kit Kats and kiwi Kit Kats. They have also in the past come out with green tea, apple, and other different flavors. All limited edition so people will flock to buy them and the convenience stores will keep them in special displays out front by the registers. It’s a great marketing thing.

Other candies have tried but they have never matched Kit Kat in their ability to churn out different flavors. Oh, and the packaging is different too since the Kit Kats are actually in a cardboard box and inside there are 4 sticks like the US but they are wrapped 2 at a time. Kinda neat.

So…the newest one that has come out? Orange Chocolate. It’s yummy. Just came out today, it’s Italian blood orange mixed with dark chocolate. Yuuuuuuuuuummy.

I’m going to buy as many of these as I can. (^_^)

So there you go. A small peek into Japanese marketing!