KitKat’s newest invention isn’t a chunky bar, or an F1 car-shaped chocolate, or even a branded ice cream. It’s a KitKat wrapper that blocks your cell phone signal.
The product is called “Break Mode,” and it was produced via a collaboration between KitKat Panama and the creative agency Ogilvy Colombia. It looks like an oversized KitKat wrapper, but it’s actually a Faraday cage, or a conductive enclosure designed to block electromagnetic fields. While Faraday cages are most commonly used in medical labs, data security applications, and to protect electrical equipment, KitKat’s spin on the tech turns it into a pouch that renders your cellphone unusable.
KitKat and Ogilvy are positioning this invention as an IRL manifestation of KitKat’s iconic “Take a Break” slogan. One video describing the campaign posted to Ogilvy’s Instagram reads, “In a world that never disconnects, how can a brand’s promise of a ‘break’ become a reality? You reinvent the packaging.” Gastón Potasz, chief creative officer of Ogilvy Andina, says that the packaging’s commercial viability is “still under evaluation.”
Lofty aspirations aside, what this campaign really shows is that brands have identified the growing desire for digital disconnection as a marketing opportunity—one that, paradoxically, they’re probably hoping you’ll come across while doomscrolling.
Why digital detoxing has become a brand opportunity
Over the past few years, reliance on cellphones and addiction to social media has led consumers to seek out alternatives, like dumbphones or phone bricks. This “appstinence movement” spawned a subcategory of more creative solutions for tech addiction, most of which were designed by individual creators: see Logan Ivey’s six-pound phone case, Hank Green’s sentient bean app, and Rhys Kentish’s app that makes you literally touch grass before you can scroll on TikTok.
Given the speed at which marketers are expected to catch on to digitally-driven trends, it was probably only a matter of time until a brand tried to make its own digital detox tool. Back in October, Ikea debuted a flat-packed bed for your phone to encourage users to put down the blue light before catching some zees. KitKat’s Break Mode is a similar concept with some slightly more complicated tech.
The outside of Break Mode looks almost exactly like a giant KitKat, just with an added slot to tuck away your phone—but it’s got several hidden layers beneath the surface.
“The packaging uses multilayer construction that combines conductive materials—primarily copper—with polyester layers,” Potasz says. “Together, these form a continuous conductive surface that redistributes and neutralizes incoming electromagnetic signals. An outer polypropylene layer protects the structure, ensuring durability and usability as an everyday package.” The sum of these parts is a complete Faraday cage: once a phone is placed inside, all signals—including calls, internet, Bluetooth, and GPS—are blocked.
Ogilvy tested Break Mode by handing it out at Expo Tech, a major tech conference in Panama; a concert; and a local university, filming clips of the demos at each event that are included in the final promotion on Instagram. Potasz says that his team sees “immense potential” for this idea to scale.
Certainly, social media-blocking innovations like this are currently in demand. As of right now, though, Break Mode isn’t a commercially available tool for customers to truly disconnect from their phones—it’s a digital marketing opportunity for KitKat, dressed up in a red wrapper.