Did you hear the one about the 12 tons of stolen KitKat bars? No really, it’s a true story. And now, Nestlé is asking the public for help in tracking down the chocolate bars with the aid of a simple website.
During the week of March 23, Nestlé reported that 413,793 KitKat bars went missing in Europe when a truck carrying the candy was stolen. Nestlé followed up with a post on April 1 announcing a website where people can check to see if their candy was among the stolen stash the company believes might end up for sale in Europe.
The Stolen KitKat Tracker is single-purpose landing page with an exceedingly simple layout. The red-washed website shows consumers where they can find the batch number on KitKat packaging, and it asks them to enter the code in a small text box at the bottom of the page.
For Nestlé, the microsite serves two purposes: It helps the company locate where the stolen candy bars ended up, and it extends interest in the story, like a twisted take on a brand activation.
Stolen product is bad news for any brand, but Nestlé is doing the candy bar version of turning lemons into lemonade. By using the theft as a chance to engage consumers, it puts the focus on its F1-branded candy bars right before Easter, one of the biggest seasons for candy sales annually, and it gives KitKat fans a call to action.
If your batch code isn’t a match for the stolen KitKats, you’re shown a message that says, “This KitKat Wasn’t Stolen – Keep Searching And Help Us Widen The Search By Sharing.” If it was stolen, the company asks consumers not to attempt to “locate, handle or recover any stolen goods and to not take any direct action,” but instead share relevant information with local law enforcement.
Nestlé tells Fast Company that users who enter a matching batch code will be prompted to upload a photo for verification and provide contact details so the case can be escalated to security.
“Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue for businesses of all sizes,” a KitKat spokesperson said in a statement. “With more sophisticated schemes being deployed on a regular basis, we have chosen to go public with our own experience in the hope that it raises awareness of an increasingly common criminal trend.”
Brands have long used microsites like the Stolen KitKat Tracker for sweepstakes and contests, but Nestlé is using it to help solve an operations problem with some uncomplicated UI and a marketing solution.