MAM
Kit Kat presents the “Baby Break”
MUMBAI: Chocolate brand Kit Kat has launched a new ad campaign that has been created by JWT India.
The new campaign is a follow up to the “Squirrels” and “Birds” executions in 2010 and 2012, with a creative spin on “Have a Break. Have a Kit Kat”.
With the new campaign too, the brand urges youth, wrapped in routine, busy schedules and caught up in the race of living in the now, to take a break and not miss out on the fun and unexpected surprises that a break can get.
The new ad campaign is led by a TVC called “Babies”.
The highlight of the TVC is the music track, created by music producer Mikey McCleary. The TVC has been directed by Shyam Madiraju. JWT chief creative officer Bobby Pawar and Madiraju worked closely with animation experts from Crater Film Studios, Belgrade to create the mix of real and animated “baby” shots.
The TVC is on youtube and other digital channels, and will be followed by a music video with the same track.
Pawar said, “The idea that something good can happen when you take a Kitkat break is in its third year. We had to raise our game and inject some freshness or the campaign would lose its impact. What worked in the first two years is that the commercials borrowed from popular culture by taking and reinterpreting classic hit songs. This time around we are taking things up a notch and trying to create a pop culture moment. So the idea was to do a baby pop concert.”
“The first part of it is the music. It‘s made up entirely of sounds made by babies, even the drumming and the rattles rattling. They were arranged in such a way that a catchy beat and hook was created. The other part of the baby concert is the dancing, which is simple yet kinda unique. Why babies? It came from the insight that watching babies play will put a smile on anyone‘s face. If you watch them doing something you haven‘t seen before, that smile will be multiplied,” Pawar added.
The TVC opens on a student doing the usual rounds with his Professor and fellow students. He steps back to take a break with a Kit Kat. What follows is a never before seen sequence of a bunch of happy babies playing in a day care centre suddenly turn into a baby pop group who give an impromptu concert to our man who is taking a Kit Kat break. The musical interlude is replete with babies singing, or in this case gurgling, cooing, laughing and drumming and swaying to their own dance moves on the music. The music and dance surprises and then delights the student, enjoying his Kit Kat. Once the break is over, the student returns back to his group, performing a quick dance step himself, energised and refreshed.
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
