Kit Kat's homepage is currently a parody of Android announcement page | Hacker News Reader

Kit Kat's homepage is currently a parody of Android announcement page

kitkat.com

741 pointsalexlitov189 comments

I was laughing at this parody. Then, I found myself wanting a KitKat.

Perhaps there's something to this presentation style after all!

I'm only a little ashamed to admit, I bought a KitKat today.

Did you run your finger along the tinfoil to cut it perfectly in half? That is a staple of every Britons childhood.

Having moved from the UK to the US, it makes me angry and disappointed that they don't use the paper/foil packaging here, so you can't do that :/

I haven't seen a paper/foil packaged kitkat in years, and this is in the UK. It seems they've abandoned it completely, which is saddening.

I haven't ever seen a paper/foil packaged kitkat. I think i missed out on something.

The 2 finger multi-packs (x8) have them, sold in Tesco and probably the other large supermarkets, I ate one (for the first time in a long time) yesterday and it was paper + tinfoil + delicious.

The mini KitKats in the US are still wrapped in paper, too.

They used to be packaged in paper and foil in the US as well. I haven't seen one in years though.

and the tinfoil was a handy way for heroin users to cook up as it was the cheapest way to buy a bit of tinfoil from a petrol station.

Was it a life's ambition to find a Kit-Kat finger made of only chocolate, rendering it merely a small thin bar of chocolate?

I found a half all solid chocolate finger once. Made my day!!!

They've coordinated their joke with http://www.android.com/kitkat/

More like Kitkat bought the next android name.. nice move.

It benefits both: KitKat is a great name for an Android release, it's alliterative, more recognizable, and of course it offers co-branding and co-marketing opportunities galore. It's a great business opportunity.

But there's a better reason that's less obvious: this is great marketing because it's fun. It's sort of funny that your phone runs on a candy bar, and your candy bar is fully supportive of it. It's a refreshing counterplay to what would otherwise be a horrible and usually expected lawsuit over the naming rights.

It's brilliant marketing, and brilliant UX on a grand scale. True props to these teams for working together and having some fun. A success of honesty and humanity that may or may not be insanely successful, but is at least authentic and refreshing.

Wow -- you managed to call crass, vapid consumerism built around substandard unhealthy confection 'authentic and refreshing'.

That's impressive. What would be more impressive is if Google hadn't sold out their userbase to Idiocracy-style co-branding with a diabetes inducing sugar product.

In other news: This is a Pepsi Cola Comment: Maximize Your Thrist!

The measure of marketing is effectiveness, not moral validity. I'll let you judge that for yourself (and you clearly have).

>A success of honesty and humanity

That may be just a bit much.

I liked the rest of it though, it is fun.

So this effusive line: "A success of honesty and humanity that may or may not be insanely successful, but is at least authentic and refreshing."

Was actually about effectiveness?

Yeah, it's how I interpreted it, it's how others will likely interpret it. I'm qualified to say this because I'm a designer and marketing professional and have a knack for empathy and understanding how a variety of people will perceive campaigns. Connotations and evoked feelings are a huge part of this, and Google-Kat has achieved those feelings of authenticity here without a doubt. It's a good campaign.

"... and Google-Kat has achieved those feelings of authenticity here without a doubt"

You don't see the irony here, do you? This is why it's so crass.

When it comes to a chunk of sugar as delicious as a KitKat, all they really need to do is plant the word "KitKat" in your brain and you'll want one. Or maybe it's just me.

yup, but they still have to have some method to plant the word KitKat into your brain.

I find the thought of dead babies in Africa tends to put me off my confectionary.

Nope, not doing it for me.

You got an upvote from me simply for knowing about it but perhaps you want to provide more references to Nestles baby formula history etc

Start here : http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott

Doesn't matter in the US. As Kitkat sold in the US is made by Hershey. http://www.hersheys.com/kitkat.aspx

Which presumably means it's covered with the same disgusting fake chocolate that the rest of Hershey products are made with, which means it's not really a KitKat...

Everyone outside the US says that, and I agree that nice European chocolate is notably different than Hershey's chocolate, but I've had both American and European KitKats and they taste identical.

...licensing the KitKat brand from Nestle. Moral quandary remains.

For what it's worth, KitKats in the US are made by Hersheys (admittedly which have their own moral issues, i.e. the 'intern' business).

Irrespective of boycotts, please please buy chocolate products that have independent certification from a third party (UTZ Certified, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance).

Certification isn't perfect, and different labels focus on different things (though most cover child labor, environment, fair working conditions), but they give a signal to the corporations that you are expecting more than just sugar at the lowest price. Some Nestle products in some markets have third-party certification. If you want to buy Nestle, buy those.

Same here, although I prefer the dark chocolate ones (one of the few! alternative flavors available in the US). Then I told myself - wait for the contest to begin... I was one of those kids who passed the marshmallow test.

You'd be better off with an Apple...

Man, apple is such a closed system. People aren't allowed to mod it at all without breaking through the layers of obfuscation and bollocks. Further more, kitkat is basically open source with how it gives you the tech specs and all those sweet diagrams.

If you want a closed system that accepts no mods or changes, go apple. If you desire something more open go kitkat!

I'm not sure that was what jahewson meant.

Apple as in the fruit.

    The Joke <-----}
                   }
                   }- The *whoosh* gap
                   }
    You <----------}

Oh come on... leave this kind of stupid things for reddit or slashdot.

But there are so many more apple apps!

apple pie, apple fritters, apple juice, apple cider, apple jacks, apple crisp, apple cake, apple butter, apple muffins, apple brown betty, apple turnovers, apple strudel, apple tart, baked apples, apple sauce, caramel apples, apple dumplings, apple chutney, apple crumble, ...

also with KitKat, thanks to fragmentation if you aren't careful you can be stuck with a real mess on your hands.

Actually, apples hybridize very easily.

Haha, same thing happened to me. I strolled on down to the vending machine and bought one a few minutes ago. I haven't had one in months, maybe years but hey it's pretty good.

But it must be a Nestle KitKat. Here in the U.S. you can find them in specialty stores. Its worth it.

Huh? You can buy them at any corner gas station.

No, in the US they're made by Hershey. Elsewhere its Nestlé.

Hershey make them under license, but as with all hershey chocolate, they do not add milk or sugar, so it tastes horrible.

Quite the opposite. Hershey adds so MUCH milk and sugar that it's more of a slightly brown sugary mass than anything resembling real chocolate.

They use soured milk.

and corn syrup

Specialty stores that specialize in selling gas, maybe?

You can buy Hershey Kit Kat (made under license) in the US at any corner store, complete with artificial flavor. Nestle Kit Kat (the original) tastes better.

I've tasted both. Not much difference.

I assumed this, as soon as I realized they were using a branded dessert instead of a generic one.

This honestly makes me wonder: what is the point of web sites for stuff like KitKat? Clearly, they can replace the entire thing for the purposes of a joke so it can't be that high up there.

Who visits those sites? What do they do on them? The Nestle/Hersheys site, sure. Standard corporate stuff. But a site specifically for KitKat?

EDIT: there seems to be some confusion in the replies. I am not talking about this joke web site that was put up today. I am talking about the normal kitkat.com that has been around forever.

People will visit the web page because it's funny. It features a lot of pictures of Kit Kat. Geeks love junk food and might serve themselves a treat, a why not, a Kit Kat just after watching this.

This process is called advertisement. Guess what? It works.

No, I mean the normal page. Not this joke one. kitkat.com has existed for a long time, and before today was just filled with normal promotional stuff.

Nutritional value, who owns the product, retailers (e.g. if you're outside of the US often products are harder to come by), etc. Standard stuff.

Presumably the same people who like KitKat on Facebook. Utterly pointless, but people do it.

I agree that it's pointless, but liking a product on Facebook are signaling to their friends that they like KitKat. I think social proof plays a role here: "will I be less cool if I don't show people how I like this thing some of my friends like too?"

A brand website doesn't quite have the same appeal of social proof. It takes a greater interest in a brand to visit its website than it takes to open a logo in a friend's FB profile.

Okay, makes sense, then correct my statement to: "The same people who participate on the KitKat Facebook fanpage." Now that's really pointless, unless you want to complain ;)

Seriously, I think the websites of candy or Coca Cola and similar consumer products are probably visited by people who want to participate in some sort of lottery or want to get some coupons. Maybe these people just check their favorite brands' websites once in a while for new coupons/prizes.

Smart marketing agencies can take a dead-end brand that's perceived as low price or low quality, then socially market it to young hipsters and get them (and their friends) to like/follow it as a way to signal to their friends that they don't care about marketing or signalling and that they "get it", and thus in the process drive a renaissance for aforementioned product due to its newly found trendy fanbase.

Who visits those sites?

We just did.

> What do they do on them?

I don't know, but now I want chocolate. Too bad for them, I already have a candy bar in the pantry.

>Clearly, they can replace the entire thing for the purposes of a joke so it can't be that high up there.

I bet they sell a few Kit Kat in the next few days after this little joke.

EDIT: Noticed they've coordinated a marketing campaign with http://www.android.com/kitkat/

Marketing is a tricky beast. Sometimes "viral" things like these will drive more traffic (and thus, awareness of your product) than money can buy.

As for who visits these sites? Almost no one. Until they pull a PR stunt like the one that just happened.

Many/Most brands in this don't-need-their-own-site category have PR stunts continually in the works with their homepage just pointing to their latest microsite.

What would you think if they didn't have the site?

Children learning to use the internet, perhaps. Though such a site wouldn't be very kid-safe, in terms of nutritional health.

The point is quite simple. Public visibility is valuable regardless of relevance.

This is the same across the board; if you have a sellable good and are serious about it, it should exist in as many accessible ways as possible. Marketing 101.

Granted, this contributes to the noise that makes traditional advertising much more difficult to be successful at, but if everyone is yelling and its your job to be heard, you need to yell too, or find a new place to talk quietly.

Towards the end of the page, it looks like they are doing this promo because you can win an Android device by buying kitkat, so this is hardly a joke, but a well thought through ad campaign.

To me at least having a product site makes more sense than the facebook/twitter feeds for them.

The cost for making a decent website are presumably negligible in the advertising budget of a global brand such as Kit-Kat. Not doing a site would require very high certainty that it's completely useless.

Well, Hershey's doesn't seem to have individual domains for their candies. They own the domains, but they redirect to hersheys.com/product. That makes a bit more sense to me.

One point of sites dedicated to a product like Kit Kat, is that it protects their brand by directing people to _their_ page when people type Kit Kat in Google or another search engine. It would also capture other searches related to the product. You will be surprised at how many people use the Google search box as their default navigation tool - even when they know the name of the site. In fact, I have seen people type Google.com in the search box rather than directly into the browser's navigation box!

Many reasons. Kitkat could put information about their product, like nutritional content, ingredients, etc. They could also provide information about the history of the brand, the different varieties, specialty varieties, limited time offers from the past and present. Perhaps they could also provided things, like videos and images of past advertisements, especially if they were particularly funny or interesting. Additionally it's a great way for customer outreach. They could inform them about some new limited time variant offering, organize contests or challenges, and so on. For example a lot of these products also offer a kind of rewards system. After you eat your candy you can note down the little code on the side, and redeem it for free products, or to enter a contest. What better place to provide this than their own website? This would included stunts like what they have pulled on their website today. And of course you have the whole trademark protection and brand identity things too.

Kids exploring about things they like; beating domain squatters; point of contact for journalists (even doing soft feelgood articles); marketing campaigns driven from the site; merely establishing an online presence is cheap, once you have IT staff anyway...

When I was a kid, Kellogg's had a bunch of flash games on sites for their main cereal brands.

Guess who had their mother buying cereal at the supermarket every month?

Nutritional info.

Even the 'small print' at the end is awesome:

Wow this really is small print isn't it? Look how tiny it is. How are you even reading this? Come to think of it, why are you even reading this?? This is no way to spend your break! You've just read all of that stuff about how awesome the KITKAT 4.4 is and you still haven't run out and got one? Wow, tough crowd. As soon as I finish writing this I'm gonna get one from my secret stash and go drink milk through it like a straw. I have to keep my stash secret because my grandmother looks at me all puppy eyed if I don't share it with her. Is it still puppy eyed if it's your gran? I suppose it would be gran eyed? Or granny eyed? Let's go with granny eyed. I feel like we've just coined a new phrase. Where's the 'trademark' symbol on this keyboard? Ah here it is ™. GrannyEyed™. I wonder if that's legally binding? Hey, let's see if we can get it trending! #GrannyEyed. Tweeted. The Internet has it now. It's out of our hands. I feel like we've just started something epic. Ok, well this was a lovely chat. I'm gonna go and grab that KITKAT now. Fancy a break?

Try to bring a standard-formula KitKat to a warm-weather climate, and you'll realize the promises of "Universal Compatibility" and "Unlimited Stand-By Time" are dangerous, messy puffery.

Where's the FTC when we need them?

(KitKat does use a different melt-resistant formula in hot places like Malaysia: http://www.nestleprofessional.com/uk/en/SiteArticles/Pages/F... )

Their js is not uglified. Here's the easteregg. function initEasterEgg() { var pattern = "72658669656682696575"; //haveabreak var userPattern = "";

        var code = "38384040373937396665";
        var userCode = "";

        $(document).keydown(function(event) {
            var p = pattern.substr(userPattern.length,2);
            var c = code.substr(userCode.length,2);
            var r = Math.floor((Math.random()*3)+1);

            if(event.which == p) {
                userPattern += event.which;
                if(userPattern === pattern) {
                    $( "body" ).append( "<div id='eeDroid'><img src='assets/desktop/images/misc/droid" + r + ".png' /></div>" );
                    $('#eeDroid').animate({bottom:'0px'},500).animate({left:'-600px'},2000, function() {
                        $(this).remove();
                    });
                    userPattern = "";
                }
            } else { userPattern = ""; }

            if(event.which == c) {
                userCode += event.which;
                if(userCode === code) {
                    $( "body" ).append( "<div id='eeDroid'><img src='assets/desktop/images/misc/droid" + r + ".png' /></div>" );
                    $('#eeDroid').animate({bottom:'0px'},500).animate({left:'-600px'},2000, function() {
                        $(this).remove();
                    });
                    userCode = "";
                }
            } else { userCode = ""; }
        });
    }

As hinted in the comment, just type "haveabreak".

Love the easter egg - try "haveabreak" or "up up down down left right left right b a"

Check out jQuery Raptorize.

Konami fun can also be found on wired.co.uk, sometimes in raptor form, other-times not.

Note: If it doesn't work the first time, try a few more times. The image may not load the first time and it rotates images. I was very disappointed it didn't work the first few times.

A well executed konami-js

https://github.com/snaptortoise/konami-js

"2 megabites, 4 megabites, or a chunky bites option"

I died.

This definitely got me as well.

This is great marketing. The corresponding Google page is good, too. http://www.android.com/kitkat/

I've always wondered how those companies (Nestle in this case) can measure the effectiveness of such one off advertising campaigns. After all, more people might buy Kit Kats in the following days but since consumers do not buy directly from Kit Kat, it might take some time before retailers realize they should order larger quantities of Kit Kat and due to this delay Nestle might never know which advertising campaign was successful. Does anyone know how this works?

I'm sure they'll know a lot more about how well the Android-branded Kit Kats are selling (which is probably a better indicator of the success of the campaign anyway).

I've worked on the web site for a few big global brands. Believe it or not, there are companies out there (like Spire [1]) that can link web visitors to actual in-store sales. I was involved with a client last year who ran a report matching registered users from their site to in store buyers, to measure how much their users actually spend on their products. It's hit and miss, frankly.

But for a campaign like this, I am sure the web and marketing teams are overjoyed if their web traffic doubles over the course of a week. That would be counted as a major win. Marketing drives to measurable metrics (like hits) and we let the sales teams worry about sales.

Also, there are analytics people using tools tonight counting mentions across the web. How many impressions through mentions is huge in the marketing space. "50 million people heard about the new KitKat homepage through news articles!" This campaign will be submitted to Cannes next year and possibly win a Gold Lion.

[1] http://www.spirenow.com/

You don't launch a "specially marked wrapper" without two marketing teams talking to each other for months beforehand, so this shouldn't be a big surprise.

But still, very cute.

This is utter genius! Best product tie-in ever. Nice scrolling effects too. Almost enough to make me buy a KitKat.

Great parody.

I suppose this is a relevant article to attach this question. What is the general consensus on using the scroll event to trigger animations/content changes?

I am working on an article that uses animations to help explain scientific processes and triggering these with the scroll position seems to offer many advantages over having the user keep clicking a next button. I know where they are on the page and can display the relevant part of an animation. This style gets a lot of hate on HN, which is why I want to ask: is there a better way?

Does it get much hate, though? Snowfall and The Jockey, the NYT pieces, use scroll to trigger pretty much everything, and they received tons of attention both here and in more mainstream media outlets.

I think what people liked the most about those was the use of truly rich media (html5 video) to compliment the article. The use of the scroll wheel was a novelty add on. When everything is reliant on the scroll it's pretty annoying.

The interactive NYT pieces get lots of attention and praise, but I remember seeing at least one critic on HN write "is scrolling the new Flash?" and a lot of discussion about how the scrolling animation in articles tends to be superfluous.

I think it really depends on how you do it.

I find that I get annoyed by sites that use scrolling as a means to navigate between sections that aren't really sequential. Something like a product page with Features, Tech Specs, Pricing, etc. those are things I want to be able to navigate to in a nonlinear way.

If you have content that lends itself to serialization or whatever you want to call it, the scrolling effects work a lot better. At that point, it just becomes an embellishment - because the user already expects to be scrolling.

The more annoying thing is the big YouTube embed that causes the experience to fall apart since the scroll does not propagate to the page.

It makes me incredibly anxious. Can't really explain much.

The video is clearly a sendup of an Apple product announcement.

It reminded me of the Mac Pro product page http://www.apple.com/ca/mac-pro

Right! Especially the animated dissection of the KitKat bar and copy like “Thanks to its world-renowned, tri-core, wafer thin CPU with full chocolate coverage.”.

It's not a parody so much as it's coordinated marketing that has thoroughly bewitched Google's target market. If it were a natural parody, I think I'd be more receptive.

Wow...I am surprised how awesome this is. I genuinely feel like going out and buying a KitKat.

I wonder what the economics of this campaign looks like.

Did Google pay Nestle, vice versa or no money change hands?

This is awesome....I love to see a big company having fun.

Google approached Nestle. No money changed hands according to this article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938

Wow....talk about a marketing coup by Nestle.

Any company that was approached by Google for something like this - if they never took it...would likely be a very dumb move.

"Don't be evil" and "Nestlé", not a combination you see that often.

More info. for those unaware of just how evil a coporation Nestlé is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaJjPRwExO8

Oh come on! Be fair. This is the greenpeace website, not "corporate propaganda": http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/Swe...

If you want a news report, you could read http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/05/nestle-greenpeace-sourci... instead.

I'd like to see more clever marketing and partnerships like this. It is certainly more interesting than bland marketing and targeted ads.

and it isn't blocked by AdBlock

Wow, the KitKat page is much better actually. Clouds fly by, candy gets chomped and rotates. An Android peeks down from an edge. Android page was just scrolling through some static images.

Its 2013 and I still cant scroll a webpage smoothly.

Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.

Reminds me more of the apple's mac pro page http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/.

Brilliant.

Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

I'm still chuckling at the "tiny print" at the bottom of the page. I'm going to go check and see if #GrannyEyed is trending now.

The execution is flawless, I wonder if Google lent them some engineers for this?

I just realized how important the number 4 in this whole deal. #classickitkat

Even the page itself comes around with 4.4 MB of data to load. And the mobile version still weighs 2.2 MB ...

Do watch the video at the end.

My favourite part of it is how he pronounces portrait as "Pour Trait". It makes me wish I'd learned to speak English where they talk like that, or it at least makes me laugh.

How else do you pronounce portrait?

In most of North America, at least, it would be something like por'trit (the second syllable is much de-emphasized, but the vowel is closer to a short i than a schwa).

The site is beautifully written using the latest HTML10 standard.

I like the fine print

The small print Wow this really is small print isn't it? Look how tiny it is. How are you even reading this? Come to think of it, why are you even reading this?? This is no way to spend your break! You've just read all of that stuff about how awesome the KITKAT 4.4 is and you still haven't run out and got one? Wow, tough crowd.

As soon as I finish writing this I'm gonna get one from my secret stash and go drink milk through it like a straw. I have to keep my stash secret because my grandmother looks at me all puppy eyed if I don't share it with her. Is it still puppy eyed if it's your gran? I suppose it would be gran eyed? Or granny eyed? Let's go with granny eyed. I feel like we've just coined a new phrase. Where's the 'trademark' symbol on this keyboard? Ah here it is ™. GrannyEyed™. I wonder if that's legally binding? Hey, let's see if we can get it trending! #GrannyEyed. Tweeted. The Internet has it now. It's out of our hands. I feel like we've just started something epic. Ok, well this was a lovely chat. I'm gonna go and grab that KITKAT now. Fancy a break?

Looks like Android has done it too: http://www.android.com/kitkat/

KitKat is the actual name of the next version of Android (4.4).

HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6321940

Thanks for the heads-up. I really can't keep up with HN!

Could this be some sort of cross-promotion? The Android page shows actual KitKat bars, logo and all.

Edit: Spoke too soon. Looks like it is!

Nothing says "solid, responsive, enterprise-grade, consumer-pleasing data access" like candy.

(Yes, I know this complaint is old, and dessert/snack is the Android naming theme. Nobody is buying in because of the meme; a lot of people are opting out because of it.)

Could be way off, but I find the idea that people are opting out of Android due to dessert names very unlikely. Seems roughly equivalent to OS X (recently retired) cat names and I don't remember people staying away from Mac cause snow leopards don't convey the advantages of owning a Mac. Especially since I'd bet a vanishingly small amount of people who own Androids know the thing that runs their phone even has a code name. Google doesn't even sell Android in boxes with jelly beans on them like Apple used to do with cats.

>a lot of people are opting out because of it

Uh citation that Android version code names affect "a lot" of people? Because I doubt any tech people care, and retail users are buying whatever and not stopping and saying "Oh, code name Jelly Bean? Screw that I'll buy an iPhone."

Most mormal people don't even know that their phone's OS has such a thing like version, code name etc. Actually there are people who don't know what OS is and which one they use.

Who exactly are "mormal" people?

People who don't care about typos ;)

One of the worlds most evil companies made a funny website.

Nestle or Google?

Hmmm, good point.

Pretty good. A couple distracting details though: (1) disgusting closeup of girl's nostril, (2) Nestle is run by f-ing Satan! Associating with them in any way is a bad move for a company that supposedly follows a rule of "don't be evil".

Kit Kat's rival, http://www.twix.com/. Personally Kit Kat is not even that good, high in sugar or something. I think twix is much tastier, nevertheless I think this is a brilliant design.

I thought this was really clever, and interestingly desperate. Maybe I've been around too long but there is always a warning twitch I get when tech companies get too cute. Sort of a "you're really trying too hard here."

I enjoyed the parody, I agree with others here that it was totally planned by the Google team ahead of time, but the shift in pure marketroidness, well it was just kinda "eww."

Kit Kat's homepage is currently a monstrosity. Scrolling down the page pushes a new history URL every half page, using the back button is then essentially broken (on Firefox at least) and actually getting back to the page that unfortunately sent you there requires something like 20 clicks.

Not so bad joke otherwise, but the history hijacking made it a crappy experience and I couldn't close the tab quickly enough.

Honestly: you're being a snob. The page is designed to be scrolled down once, chuckled at, and closed. And I did, and it works for me. Sitting on our high horses and demanding that Nestle's corporate IT department churn out a site worthy of YC-driven-multi-round-venture-funding is counterproductive and unkind. They had a cute idea, probably on short notice, and they got it done.

I will say that I'm actually really liking this sort of whimsy. It's distressingly rare in the bigcorp world (even in candy, I guess) to see companies poke fun at their established products like this. I like it.

I still won't eat them though.

and closed.

If you didn't "Open In New Tab" the link, and value the current tab's browsing history, this will be very annoying via "back back back back back aw crap how far must I go back back click-hold-back good grief click meh that was fun until it wasn't."

or hold down on the back button.

My browser can display the entire history and allows me to skip right to where I want to go.

Mine too, tga you should just update your browser and stop being a party pooper.

Outsourced design agencies hired by big corps aren't usually known for their respect of web accessibility.

I found the KitKat site to flow better than the Android site it was parodying. In Chrome, even.

I wish developers were more aware of ReplaceState, which updates the URL but deletes the previous state. I usually put a condition check in any state saving that checks to see which is more appropriate. For example, in a page of popup videos associated with URLs I might push the first state so the user can hit back once to get the normal URL, but replace from then on so the number of back actions to leave never exceeds two.

The webpage is a monstrosity because of a problem on the back button? Wow, hackernews comments never cease to amaze me when it comes to finding something negative to say.

Ran here to say this. The site quickly went from being a hilarious parody I was going to forward to friends to an infuriating display of bad design that I'll now keep to myself.

>> infuriating display of bad design

Perspective please!

It actually makes it great for sharing certain funny bits with friends.

>> Kit Kat's homepage is currently a monstrosity [...] the history hijacking made it a crappy experience and I couldn't close the tab quickly enough.

I am hoping this is a parody of the average Hacker News comment on an HTML5 site.

Seems pretty reasonable to me that on a page like this every piece of content deserves its own history state. At least it’s a completely valid view, nothing to go apeshit over.

Hold down the back button and you can go back 1 to 12 pages at a time, depending on which one you pick.

This is beautifully executed and quite fun, but it's not riffing on the Android announcement page nearly as much as it is on Apple's Mac Pro announcement page: http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/

The Android page is a brief history of the OS, while the Mac Pro page is an animated product brochure, which is what this really is.

Android KitKat is the first product placement I remember which doesn't annoy me. In fact I fancy it.

Dear God do not try to hit "back" on that page having scrolled all the way through...

Parody? This is real: http://www.android.com/kitkat/

(IMHO a bad move for the Android brand, unless teens are their new main target. But let's see...)

Today I learned the KitKat bar can be used as a straw and that the wrapper can tear to only expose on finger. If this is true, I may very well stock up for use with my coffee at the office!

It still tastes rubbish and is full of sugar. Not food, not cool.

Your opinion, personally I'm a sucker for a peanut KitKat Chunky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOrkLxOBoY is a very well done parody!

Was I the only one thinking that video at the end was taking a dig at Mark Shuttleworth? Great bit of funny marketing regardless.

WTF at the small print at the bottom of the page

That's the best part.

I wish this page style would just go away.

Omg, now I have a craving for Kit Kats. And the webpage is hilarious and fantastic...

This crashes the browser on Windows Phone 7.5. Am I not allowed to have a kitkat?

You're a fool if you think Kit Kat isn't also conspiring with the NSA.

Good gosh. Kudos to Nestle and Android, but I cannot stand that website design.

I wish I could up-vote the page directly. That's quite a lot of fun.

They messed up my "back" button. Party foul.

It is fascinating to look at the execution of the Google page vs the Nestle page.

Seems like a near perfect real world example of "HOW TO" and "HOW NOT TO" accomplish modern web design.

Which one is which?

This is absolutely fucking brilliant. Loved it!

This is a very clever parody of Android phone marketing. Buying a KitKat to test compatibility.

100% awesome.

great marketing campaign.

It almost crashed my firefox. wtf.

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