Cash in … on the media blitz and fans. The media coverage that swarmed Kraft Macaroni & Cheese when they hired the Man with the Golden Voice, Ted Williams (remember him?) was heartwarming but yet filled with an incredible amount of risk. What happened if he lapsed and the golden voice was once again silenced by addiction? Well, we know that is what happened and while the coverage was worth its weight in mentions, the momentum shifted from Kraft and their new golden voice to the man behind the voice. This shift was fast and furious and left Kraft needing another boost in the media. Well, they think they have that boost with their new contest that puts tweeters into the spotlight.
Kraft with the assistance of their agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky are asking us, Twitter users to give it our best shot to create 5 commercials for them. The only requirement is to mention Macaroni and Cheese in a tweet and they will judge and select the best tweets and create a commercial around them today (Monday, March 28).
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Combines Mediums
The concept of having the general public create commercials is nothing new but from Tweets? Yes, Facebook advertisers are relying upon status updates and comments for their advertising but it is along the same medium. Crossing over mediums is taking that leap of faith that those that tweet are heavy television watchers (especially of Conan and George Lopez as 1 of the 5 commercials will be aired tonight during those shows) and those that are television watchers will have heard of the contest, be enticed enough to watch these shows and also then jump on over to Facebook to see the other 4 spots. Wow. That is a lot of conditions that have to be met. The biggest of course is that they are able to garner enough attention for this contest and have the material that they need to create the spots?
The incredible success of the Old Spice Campaign last year comes to mind here. However, we never had to leave the comfort of our computer to be a part of this sensation. The videos were created in response to tweets and then posted on You Tube, tweeted and shared on Facebook. Kraft not only is combining mediums, it is combining platforms. The heavy push for tweets is not only limited to Twitter as on Facebook they have created Mac & Cheese TV which attempts to marry Facebook and Twitter. If you tweeted, is your tweet selected? Well, you will have to watch the programs tonight and also head on over to Mac & Cheese TV. Oh and also, be sure to tweet about it as this helps with their twitter related marketing push. Which that is what this is about? Or is it a twitter related marketing push-on-over-to Facebook as the commercials are viewable there?
Mac & Cheese TV
The Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Facebook page is liked by roughly 418,000 fans who seem to be quite active on the page. The addition of is no different. At the time of the writing of this post, the update of All things KRAFT Macaroni & Cheese had 98 comments. The Mac & Cheese TV landing page while not open to comments is showcasing the live tweets. This is risky as we know that all of the tweets are going to be favorable and as we see below, they are not.
Unfavorable tweets aside, Kraft is facing the hurdle that Facebook users are tweeters and will be enticed to want to tweet and also watch the spots this evening on TV and their Facebook page. This combining mediums is just the beginning of where traditional and social media is headed. Not to far ahead in the future, television will be interactive. We will be tweeting directly from our television about a program. We will be watching advertisers scrambling to be the next best thing on television and Twitter/Facebook. They will be taking risks that are associated with live. The tweets will be a part of the shows for everyone to view. Oh wait a minute, it is network tv and with that will come a delay. Will brands be able to stop the negative comments or just filter the profanity ladien? This is still in the future but not too distant.
Does Media Blitz Equate to Buyers?
The attention that Kraft is receiving is definitely a big boost for them and is coming on the heels of their Mac & Jinx twitter promotion which yielded 1.5 million tweets. Great, but how many of these tweeters became buyers? Retweets are awareness and attention but when they do not equate to buyers is the campaign a fail? It is dependent upon what the goal of the campaign is of course, however, in product marketing, isn’t the overall goal to convert to buyers? Will this current contest convert people into buyers or just get them back into the mainstream media for a few days?
This is a short term campaign that may or may not have enough time to mature in the media as it is so finite. The tweets come in, they create the spots, they run, they get circulated and we are onto the next big thing. They had their few minutes of fame and there is not much to build upon. Sure, they could run the contest again but that is dependent upon the success of this one. Or, maybe this is just the start of the campaign for Mac & Cheese TV. Will we be seeing, show us your mac and cheese (like the Dominos Pizza contest) through video and it will air on Mac & Cheese TV?
Contests, are they effective in converting lookers to buyers?
photo credit:
