If the world really does end on Dec. 21 as Mayan conspiracy theorists suggest, Kraft wants it to end with a warm bowl of Kraft Dinner.
On Dec. 4 the brand launched a social media campaign asking consumers to tweet “I want my last meal to be KD,” with the hashtag #KDpocalypse. In exchange, Kraft is tweeting back unique URLs offering users a free box of KD.
Within the first three days of the campaign, more than 5,000 users tweeted the hashtag, according to Mieka Burns, associate brand manager for Kraft Dinner. Burns said KD used the initiative to insert itself into conversations about the Mayan calendar in a fun, irreverent, humorous way.
“We knew there was a really big socially and culturally relevant event happening in 2012,” she said, adding that Kraft is always looking for entertaining ways to interact with its Twitter followers and Facebook fans. “We decided to ask them, ‘If you guys love KD so much, do you actually love it enough to make it your last meal if the world is going to end?’”
Taxi 2, which handled the campaign creative and social strategy, took a similarly humorous tone in companion wild posting posters for Vancouver and Toronto which read, “Alien probes, killer zombies, giant asteroids. Do you really want to face all that on an empty stomach?” and “If it’s your last meal on Earth, do you really want it to be brussels sprouts?”
MediaVest handled the media buy, which included the wild posting, as well as paid social.
In August, Kraft Dinner launched its Twitter presence with a campaign that asked users to tweet their dreams to the brand’s account. The brand tweeted users back drawings of their dreams.
Burns said throughout 2012 Kraft Dinner drastically increased its social presence, quickly gaining 10,000 Twitter followers and quadrupling its Facebook fanbase from 100,000 fans at the start of the year to more than 450,000 today. Based on this success, Burns said she expects social to become a predominant part of Kraft Dinner’s overall marketing plan in 2013.
“Our social activity is going to have an increased importance next year,” she said. “Assuming the world doesn’t end. Fingers crossed.”
