Limited seats remain

Secure your place at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, March 23-25

REGISTER

How One Direction helped KitKat get its most retweeted tweet ever

If it’s anyone in the world who deserves a break, it’s One Direction.

Ever since being thrusted into the spotlight five years after appearing on “The X Factor (UK),” the British boy band has endured a grueling string of tours, album releases and publicity appearances.

Well, it’s all coming to an end in March, when the band says it’s taking a “hiatus.”

KitKat, probably sensing its “Oreo moment,” jumped on the news Thursday to capitalize on its iconic “Have a Break” moment, tweeting this (and shamelessly tagging the band members):

Twitter and One Direction go together just as good as chocolate and wafers (after all, One Direction accounted for half of the 10 most retweeted tweets on Twitter this year), so the odds were in their favor of this being a massive viral hit. Thanks to some assistance by way of a retweet from singer Liam Payne and his 21.5 million followers, KitKat’s tweet garnered 66,000 retweets and 84,000 likes, making it brand’s most popular tweet ever. 

Prior to this, KitKat’s #bendgate tweet mocking the iPhone’s bending abilities was its most popular tweet, with 13,000 likes and 66,000 retweets, but this eclipsed that by far.

“You always try these things with a bit of hope, but don’t really expect such a personality to take notice,” Barry Christie, the creative director of J. Walter Thompson, the agency behind the tweet, told Digiday. “We have heard before that 1D are partial to a KitKat or two, so there was an inkling of hope,” he added pointing to the brands previous reactive tweets have been popular, like #bendgate.

The tweet ignited a wave of ecstatic responses from One Direction’s fans begging the brand to sell the customized candy bars:  

 

KitKat, you better listen up before the teens hyperventilate.

More in Marketing

WTF is Meta’s Manus tool?

Meta added a new agentic AI tool to its Ads Manager in February. Buyers have been cautiously probing its potential use cases.

Agencies grapple with economics of a new marketing currency: the AI token

Token costs pose questions for under-pressure agency pricing models. Are they a line item, a cost center — or an opportunity?

From Boll & Branch to Bogg, brands battle a surge of AI-driven return fraud

Retailers say fraudsters are increasingly using AI tools to generate fake damage photos, receipts and documentation to claim refunds.