Across Prague, over 100 billboards were displaying the same abstract filler pattern: placeholder graphics used to fill unsold advertising space. Some had been that way for over 18 months. Nobody noticed them, nobody was meant to. We saw something everyone else had overlooked: ads that were already having a break. So we turned them into an invitation for the whole city to have one too.
KitKat Break Billboards
Turning Prague's empty ad spaces into breaks for an entire city
Client
- Nestlé
Office
- Prague
VML and KitKat reframe ignored urban spaces into moments of pause, inviting consumers to stop, scan – and have a break with KitKat.
We didn’t want to add another striking visual element to an already vibrant urban environment. Instead, we took advantage of the moment without advertising and turned it into the main creative motif. The pause is not just a claim, but a real experience on the streets of the city.
Nikola Skýpalová
Brand Manager KitKat CZ&SK
Walking through Prague, we noticed something hiding in plain sight. Over 100 outdoor advertising sites were displaying an identical abstract pattern, a generic filler used to block empty space between campaigns. Some had been sitting untouched for over 18 months. The ad space wasn't being used. It was just… having a break. That moment of recognition was the spark: what if the city's most ignored surfaces already carried our message? What if wasted media could become useful media?
We called them "Break Billboards." Rather than purchasing new outdoor media, we hijacked the placeholder pattern already sitting on 100+ sites across Prague and reframed it as a giant, scannable code. When people spotted a billboard "having a break," they could scan the pattern via a microsite and receive a code to redeem a KitKat Break Pack at the nearest outlet. No outdoor media was bought. We simply used our existing social budget to reveal the meaning already hiding in the city's unused ad inventory. The most noticed ads in Prague were the ones doing nothing.
KitKat has spent 65 years telling the world to "Have a Break." But in a city that never stops moving, the message needed a new way in. Our challenge wasn't awareness, it was relevance. How do you remind a hyper-connected, ad-weary generation that breaks matter, in a way that actually stops them on the street? We couldn't simply add more advertising noise to Prague's cluttered outdoor landscape. We needed to cut through without contributing to the problem.
The campaign's two-week reward allocation was exhausted in just two days. A second wave of 110 Break Packs was sourced to meet demand. The hijacked outdoor inventory was valued at over 2,000,000 CZK, making it one of Prague's largest outdoor presences, achieved with zero media spend on OOH. Across social, the activation generated 3.8 million impressions. PR coverage landed in Czech marketing media on day one, followed by national newspapers within 48 hours. The campaign proved that the most effective billboard in the city was the one already having a break.
With a brand with such a strong DNA as KitKat, it is much easier to naturally enter contextual and culturally relevant moments. When we saw a city full of unused advertising spaces, it made sense for us to turn them into a moment of pause for KitKat.
Jake Barrow
Chief Creative Officer, VML Prague
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