Friday, March 13, 2015

What's a Food Hack and why is Kraft featuring them in their new campaign?



A food hack is apparently a creative twist on an existing recipe.  While they can be done for a variety of purposes -- to add nutrition, take out an ingredient, add flavor, etc., Kraft is focusing on food hacks that help budget-conscious consumers stretch their dollars further..

Kraft is rolling out a new content marketing campaign targeting what they are referring to as "strapped" consumers -- including Millennials and Hispanics.  To do this they have added a sub-hub to their English language and Spanish language websites, which currently carry over 60,000 recipes -- half of which were consumer-generated.

While the effort includes a "share and win" sweepstakes, the emphasis of the campaign is drive people to the content.  To this end, 6 and 15 second videos are being placed on Facebook, Tumbler, Pinterest and Twitter.  Banner ads are running on desktop and mobile, and they have reached out to popular food bloggers. Interestingly, out-of-home efforts are running not only in traditional supermarkets, but also dollar, club and convenience stores. (Lukovitz, 2015)
  
So what do you think?  Will you "twist a dish" with Kraft?  Will anyone you know? 


 
Lukovitz, K. (2015, March 10)  Kraft Rolls Out Recipe Hub, Content Marketing Program for 'Strapped' Consumers.  mediapost.com.  Retrieved March 12, 2015, from
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/245363/kraft-rolls-out-recipe-hub-content-marketing-prog.html?print

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a millennial myself, I admit most of us are foodies. But there is difference between “love (eating/sharing) gourmet food and love making gourmet food.

Given the fast-moving life pace, I would rather save the time of cooking food to do other things, so my life can be more cost-efficient. Reasons: 1. We’re not trained to be a cook, even thought the receipt looks easy to follow; there are lots of other hassles (e.g. cleaning, buying ingredient, preparing it). 2.there’re lots of eaters out there offering delicious food while charging at low price; we can just bring our love ones there to eat and enjoy, why bother ourselves to cook. 3. Most of us are not cook talents (otherwise there would be more famous chefs); many may think creating a new receipt very challenging.

But there’s a bright side of the campaign. It’s content marketing and media tactics are doing a great job to promo the idea “good cooking is not reachable, as long as you follow the shown steps”. It makes gourmet food less mysterious and guides those who have time and passion to cook to a better cooking level.

Provided with the researches Kraft has done and the positive feedback so far, I’m not to say it won’t success; but since I’m the target they describe yet having no interesting to participate in such campaign, I wonder whether they will have to narrow down their target a bit.

-by Mengying Li(Cosette)

Unknown said...

I think that Kraft’s “Twist a Dish” campaign will be very successful. I believe that engaging the consumer by running a sweepstakes will only increase the success of the campaign. People who are on budgets and cannot afford to be creative with their meals will absolutely appreciate this content marketing program. “Twist a Dish” will provide a platform for budget conscious consumers to relate to others in similar situations.

I think that this will be especially popular with budget conscious parents as many parents already have a difficult time getting their children to various foods as well as maintain a healthy diet because of their pickiness. I believe that this campaign will be a great way to give these parents new ideas to provide their families with variety while on a budget. I also think because the campaign will allow people to share their recopies with others they will feel as they are part of something, almost like being part of a club. People are always looking to belong and be a part of something.

The sweepstakes will add to the success of the campaign because who doesn’t want to win money. I think this will bring attention to the overall campaign and is just an additional way to engage consumers.

In addition to giving people a new way to create culinary variety in their homes they will also be inspired to create their own recipes to help others struggling to keep variety in their homes while on a budget. I would “twist a dish” especially because I like to cook and I think many people who like to cook would enjoy sharing their recipes…add a sweepstakes and I would definitely not give up a chance to win money by sharing something that I love to do anyway. I think many people would feel the same way.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe this campaign will be successful. In my opinion, the message is not simple enough and their strategies are too convoluted for the demographic they're trying to reach you (busy! busy!). I like how they're heavy on the social and digital side, but even that seems to me to, not a direct enough way of getting in touch with their target. With a content heavy campaign there is more room for losing the message and when potential consumers and your current buying base needs to put in the time and effort to gain value it'll be hard to get people to take the leap. Perhaps I'm not understanding the campaign correctly, but it just seems too complicated to understand for the everyday consumer that is bombarded with noise and other advertisements trying to catch their attention. perhaps Kraft and their marketing team can dumb down the message, make it more clear, and make it more direct. It will be interesting to see how this campaign does.

Willson Cross