Noodling With OOH

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese may be popular with kids, but to make it prevalent with both kids and adults, Kraft has turned to out-of-home in a big way — a first for the brand. Playing off the smiling noodle visual and the “You know you love it” tagline, the campaign, which runs through the end of the year, includes giant smiling noodles at marquee locations.

Weighing over two tons, the giant noodles have landed in Wrigley Field and Navy Pier in Chicago and Fisherman’s Wharf Pier 39 in San Francisco. Other locations will see the arrival of giant noodles over the summer.

“We made it act like an iconic brand by using large formats and establishing a dominant presence in iconic locations to unleash people’s latent love for the brand,” said Norm Chait, svp and director of out-of-home investment and activation for MediaVest, which placed the campaign. (Crispin Porter provided the creative.)

The campaign showcased the brand in other ways, including die-cut noodles on taxi tops in New York, wallscapes in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as more traditional billboards and posters.

No campaign is complete these days without some interactive element to engage consumers, so in the top three markets, MediaVest worked with Monster Media on interactive storefront displays that all but say cheese, using facial recognition technology to make the noodle smile back at passersby.

“We know the traditional formats work, but layering in the extra interactive component gets consumers to play with the brand, resulting in a richer end result,” Chait said.

To move Kraft’s brand outside, MediaVest relied heavily on the new Eyes On outdoor ratings for the most efficient placement of boards and locations. “The ratings helped inform our selection process so the message worked harder 24/7 at a time when consumers are spending more time outside the home,” said Chait.