Executives from the two firms met face to face at a secret event held at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February to finalise the details. To promote the alliance, Nestle now plans to deliver more than 50 million chocolate bars featuring the Android mascot to shops in 19 markets, including the UK, US, Brazil, India, Japan and Russia. The packaging had to be produced in advance over the past two months. But despite the scale of the operation, the two firms managed to keep the story a secret. "Keeping it confidential was paramount to Google's strategy," acknowledges Mr Bula. "Absolutely nothing leaked."
The Android team also took steps to preserve the element of surprise, notifying only a "tight team" about the decision. "We kept calling the name Key Lime Pie internally and even when we referred to it with partners," revealed Mr Lagerling. "If we had said, 'The K release is, by the way, secret', then people would have racked their minds trying to work out what it was going to be." Most Google employees will have learned of the news only when a statue of the Android mascot made out of KitKats was unveiled at the firm's Mountain View, California, campus.