KRAFT HEINZ | New and Not Improved | 2017
They quietly sold 50 million boxes before finally coming clean / Kraft Heinz "New and Not Improved"
Kraft Heinz changed the recipe for its mac and cheese and kept selling it for three months without telling a single soul. 50 million boxes of it. Staying quiet about a change is about the one move you're never supposed to make in advertising, and that's exactly what they did.
The problem
As consumer worry about artificial colors and preservatives grew, Kraft announced in 2015 that it would remove artificial colors and preservatives from its Mac & Cheese. It was a decision to replace Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 with paprika, annatto, and turmeric.
The insight
If the taste and color hadn't changed, there was no need to shout "we changed it!" In fact, staying silent would be more convincing. CP+B bet on that counterintuitive idea. Rather than explaining it in words, quietly selling the product and letting it speak for itself would be the real proof.
The idea
The new recipe quietly hit store shelves starting at the end of 2015 and kept selling without anyone noticing. They didn't change the packaging or run any ads, keeping the fact of the change under wraps for three months. Only after around 50 million boxes had sold did they finally reveal the secret. That's when they rolled out the line "New and Not Improved" — meaning it's new, but it hasn't been "improved" (the taste hasn't changed). The VP in charge left a comment to the effect of: there's no need to invite people to try it now, because everyone's probably already eaten it.
What happened
Within a full day of the TV commercial airing, it had racked up over 200 million impressions, turning what should have been a quiet household food item into something talk shows and news programs were covering. The campaign won Gold in the Direct category and Bronze in the Integrated category at Cannes Lions.
Afterthought
Proving after the fact that you truly did nothing is not as easy as it sounds. If the taste had actually changed, this would have blown up into a huge controversy — so pulling this off took serious confidence and nerve. Just managing to build an entire ad campaign around the idea of "selling quietly" already feels like a win.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2017
