On March 28, Kraft ran a series of TV ads that incorporated tweets, with the ads airing on the same day the tweets were sent. The spots ran during TBS’s late-night talk shows “Conan” and “Lopez Tonight,” and the same marketing sequence was repeated the following day and night. The campaign was created by agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, who produced 10 commercials in two days. Kraft called the initiative “Mac & Cheese TV,” and has posted the spots to its YouTube channel.
In an interview with ClickZ, Kraft Senior Brand Manager Noelle O’Mara explained that the company’s goals were to engage fans create a dialog with them: “Our creative ideas are always inspired by how our consumer uses, thinks about, and relates to our brand. There is nothing more “realtime” about how our consumer does this than through Twitter.” O’Mara says that the brand uses Facebook and Twitter create and strengthen the community of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese lovers.
The results?
Kraft is tracking consumer awareness and engagement with both the brand and the program, which has already generate 10 million impressions and received positive feedback from fans. It’s not clear how the company is tracking these impressions, and whether they include the spots’ airing on TV.
At ThoughtPick, Beirut Abu Hdaib has summarized some of this innovative marketing campaign’s key ingredients to success. These include:
- People enjoy being famous: If you can actually make your followers famous, they will love you for it!
- Listen to your audience: If nothing else, Kraft will definitely get more loyal customers based on its campaign since it made them feel appreciated and showed them that the brand, Kraft, cares about their opinions and insights.
But as Hdaib also points out, Kraft didn’t generate nearly as much buzz as the Old Spice campaign, which similarly used fan tweets as the basis for a series of creative video spots last year. While both campaigns fed into the excitement of seeing your tweets turned into a commercial, the Old Spice initiative
- ran across multiple days, which allowed the brand to build momentum and buzz
- selectively targeted and engaged specific individuals with large numbers of followers and influence, who, in turn, helped get their network engaged with the campaign.
Not to mention, the Old Spice ads were funnier and featured Isaiah Mustafa.
What campaign do you think is more effective? Will we see more advertisers use fan posts to drive the content of their creative? Let us know what you think!
