And in 2018, Starbucks shut more than 8,000 stores across the US for a day following a racial profiling incident. It was a visible pause and a reset. Most importantly, it was not subtle but unmistakable.
Different moments. Different tones. But the same underlying instinct—meet the moment, don’t run from it.
Not an Ad. Still Advertising
And this is exactly how marketing and advertising experts are reading it. “When I first saw it (the official KitKat statement), I thought—this is advertising,” reckons Harish Bijoor, who runs an eponymous brand consulting firm. It almost feels like the start of a new genre: apology advertising that doesn’t apologise, but plays the moment.
Except, apparently, this isn’t an ad. “But come on—the red, the KitKat colours—you can see they’re milking the moment. And doing it smartly,” he says. When something gets stolen, it signals value. And here, KitKat has flipped it. They may have lost a shipment, but they’ve stolen consumer affection. “It makes you smile. And that smile is serious brand currency,” says the advertising and marketing guru.
And that, in many ways, is the whole point.
KitKat chose its lane. It didn’t try to out-joke the moment. It didn’t overcompensate with action. It simply stayed in character. The same brand that tells you how to break a chocolate bar—and then invites you to ignore it—handled a real-world break the same way. Calm. Light. In control.
Whether you’re eating a KitKat or handling a crisis, the principle holds: Respect the form. But never lose the feel.
Break it clean or don’t, just make sure that when the moment comes, you still taste like yourself.