Kraft touts Grilled Cheese to sell cheese

The NY Times reports Kraft is upping their marketing budget — estimated at $1.4 billion a year — by $300 million to $400 million to help faltering sales.

A case in point is Kraft Singles sliced cheese; Kraft will devote a campaign that begins today to the glorification of the grilled cheese sandwich.

The television, online, print and retail campaign carries the upbeat theme “Have a happy sandwich.”

“In marketing-speak, we call it the ‘end dish,’ as in what’s the dish the product ends up in,” said Jane Hilk, vice president for marketing at the cheese and dairy business unit at Kraft in Glenview, Ill.

“If we can grow grilled cheese, and get grilled cheese back onto the list of quick menu options, we can grow our Kraft Singles business,” she added.

In campaigns from the longtime previous agency for Kraft Singles — the Chicago office of JWT, part of the WPP Group — the brand was peddled on “functional benefits,” Ms. Hilk said, like calcium content.

“But we’d hit that point where consumers say: ‘I know that. What else?’ ” she said, adding: “The conversation needs to happen on an emotional level because that’s where the power of a brand comes in. We found ourselves in need of strategy change and creative change.”

Enter a new agency, Nitro, a boutique becoming known for landing assignments — previously handled by far larger agencies — from giant marketers like Mars and Unilever. Nitro executives play up the agency’s status as a smaller, independent shop to suggest they are more nimble than their counterparts.

“We’re fortunate that in our experience so far we’ve had brave clients who understand the opportunity for engaging consumers in ways that are outside the traditional,” said Kathy Delaney, who recently joined Nitro as global executive creative director, based in the New York office.

“We’re not promising happiness; no brand can,” Ms. Delaney said. “What we’re promising is that for the three or four minutes you’re having a Kraft grilled cheese sandwich, you’re happy.”

The approach is “unconventional,” Ms. Delaney acknowledged, because “it is not about selling a cheese slice.”

But if Kraft could “get people to make just one more grilled cheese sandwich a year,” she added, sales of Kraft Singles would improve.

Along with a plethora of TV spots, the campaign will feature a contest on MySpace (myspace.com/haveahappysandwich), which begins on Oct. 15. Visitors will be asked to create video clips that celebrate grilled cheese; the winner gets $50,000 and a chance to have his or her video produced as a commercial.

I have to wonder if they'll become sponsors of the Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational. ;)