In one of the stranger marketing tie-ups this year, Google has partnered with Nestle to name the latest version of its Android mobile operating software after it’s Kit Kat chocolate bar. The news comes as the search giant announced that it has surpassed 1 billion worldwide activations of its Android mobile operating system to date. […]
In one of the stranger marketing tie-ups this year, Google has partnered with Nestle to name the latest version of its Android mobile operating software after it’s Kit Kat chocolate bar.
The news comes as the search giant announced that it has surpassed 1 billion worldwide activations of its Android mobile operating system to date.
The naming of the new version as ‘Kit Kat’ is particularly surprising as it had been previously thought that the next update would be ‘Key Lime Pie’.
KitKat will be version 4.4 of Android, the operating system that now ships on nearly 80 per cent of smartphones worldwide.
To celebrate the release the Swiss food and beverage giant will ship more than 50 million KitKats featuring the Android mascot to 18 markets including the UK, the US, Japan, India and Russia.
Google has confirmed to the BBC that the idea for the name originated with them, and that no money is changing hands as part of the deal.
Speaking to the BBC John Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships, said that the ‘partnership’ with Nestlé was “not a money-changing-hands kind of deal”, and that both parties had wanted to do something “fun and unexpected”.
Lagerling said he had made a “cold call” to the switchboard of Nestle’s UK advertising agency at the end of November to propose the tie-up. The next day, Nestle invited him to take part in a conference call with the deal being confirmed just 24 hours later.
“Very frankly, we decided within an hour to say let’s do it,” Patrice Bula, Nestle’s marketing chief told the BBC.
Nestle ad promo
Through the deal, Google will benefit from massive exposure in shops worldwide, while Nestle will get promotion on Android’s wide range of devices, likely boosting its global brand recognition.
Nestlé have joined in by collaborating on a spoof promo video for their famous chocolate bar (see below), describing the KitKat as offering “adjustable orientation” and “global coverage” that means you can take the snack “literally anywhere”.
The ad also takes a dig at Apple, briefly showing a tablet screen with the tag-line ‘There’s a KITKAT for that’, an allusion to the iPhone maker’s famous ‘There’s an app for that’ slogan.
Nestlé promises that “no matter what type of break you’re looking for, we’ve got it covered”, offering “a two mega-bite, four mega-bite, or chunky-bite option”.
Nestlé will produce over 50 million promotional Kit Kat bars with the Android mascot.
Confectionery theme
The search giant has traditionally named different versions of Android using a confectionery theme in alphabetical order.
The tradition started with Android Cupcake (version 1.5) back in 2009, before continuing through Donut, Eclair, Froyo (that’s ‘frozen yoghurt’), Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich and, most recently, Jelly Bean (versions 4.1-4.3).
Most Google employees apparently only learned about the news once a giant Kit Kat Android statue was unveiled at Google HQ.
Android tops 1bn activations
According to a post on Sundar Pichai’s Google+ page, more than 1 billion Android devices have been activated to date. The news follows CEO Larry Page comments back in July, claiming there were 1.5 million Android activations a day.
