One of Japanese’s best selling chocolate snacks, with close to 1.5 billion sold each year, are Nestles’ KitKats. Found at high-end department stores and Takagi chocolatories are KitKats of every flavor you can imagine – and more. Take for example:
• Green Tea
• Lemon Vinegar
• sweet potato
• Butter KitKat,
• Pumpkin Pudding
• Shinshu Apple
• Adzuki Bean Sandwich
• Melon
• Chocolate Covered Strawberry
• Hazelnut
• Maple
• Passion Fruit
• Grilled Potato
• Bitter Almond
• Matcha Milk
• Cherry Blossom
• Grape Wine
• Soybean
• Coke and Sprite
• Rum Raisin
• Melon and Mascarpone Cheese
• Soy Sauce
• Blueberry Cheesecake
• Ginger Ale
• Brandy and Orange
• Sake
• “Sublime Gold”– covered in gold leaf!
and what would Japanese chocolate be without a wasabi flavor?
The brilliance of Nestles’ approach was to appeal to Japanese traditions.
If one travels in Japan, you must bring back a local gifts. Hence: Okinawa provides you with purple potato and matcha green tea Kitkats. Going to Yokohama? Cheese cake kitkat is a must. Kobe? Pudding. Kyushu? Definitely strawberries. And Shizuoka gives you the illustrious wasabi.
These limited local selections are one of the keys to their success. The limited editions are not only for specific regions, but also for seasons: Cherry blossom in spring and maple in autumn.
The Japanese love of seasonal and regional products were key to KitKats success. Of course it didn’t hurt that kito kato is a homonym for “definite success,” so what better gift at a challenging time?
But these are not candy tacky flavors. These are subtle and sophisticated flavorings meticulously created for people with refined, gourmet tastes.
And you thought it was hard to break into the Japanese market? You thought go conservative, right? Well, in Japan, sometimes it’s the weird and wacky (to us) that wins!
