Kraft cheese is urging consumers to fall in love with grilled cheese sandwiches with a new interactive marketing campaign and MySpace partnership.
The campaign, “Have a Happy Sandwich,” was created by Kraft Singles and New York-based advertising agency Nitro in their first collaboration.
The campaign targets consumers by relating to the emotional level of their “happy” experiences eating grilled cheese and calls on them to express this by making videos about it and posting them on MySpace.
“We want to interact with our consumers using relevant, entertaining content in unexpected places, places where they work and play, but where they wouldn’t normally see Kraft,” said Jane Hilk, vice president of marketing for cheese and dairy at Kraft Foods.
“We also want to make grilled cheese part of the conversation again, whether online or through word of mouth, to reestablish our cultural currency,” she said.
“MySpace provides branding opportunities, which allows us to interact with consumers through page themes, badges and downloadable screen savers,” Hilk continued.
The contest begins on October 15. It allows users to upload 10- to 15-second original videos and animations at www.myspace.com/haveahappysandwich for a chance to win $50,000.
Videos submitted by November 12 will be judged, and the best videos will be featured on MySpace for visitors to vote for their favorites from November 26 through December 10.
The $50,000 prize will be awarded to the person submitting the video that Kraft finds best to express the joy of eating grilled cheese. The winning video will also have the chance to be produced into a national commercial.
According to Hilk, Americans eat more than 2 billion grilled cheese sandwiches every year. She also said that about half of grilled cheese sandwiches are made in households with children.
Kraft Foods hopes to reach this large audience through the giant social network, who according to Hilk goes beyond just attracting teenagers.
“Social networks are a part of life for many of the people who enjoy Kraft products, not just younger people,” Hilk added.
“Over 90 percent of MySpace’s 60-plus million monthly visitors are 18-plus, and over half are age 25 to 49,” she said. “Kraft understands that social networking and other nontraditional marketing initiatives can help create dialogues between people and our brands.”
The MySpace contest will be supported by a series of new television spots on national and cable channels.
Kraft commissioned artists to create nontraditional 10- and 15-second “happy breaks,” addressing the same theme as the MySpace consumers.
