It has been memorialized in song, became a popular comfort food during the pandemic, and even crowned Canada’s unofficial national dish, but KD is making a giant leap for boxed macaroni and cheese with its latest marketing campaign.
Using the star registry company CosmoNova, the Kraft Heinz Canada brand and its creative agency Rethink have named 21 stars housed within The Big Dipper, part of an attempt to fill the empty bowl of the famous asterism (part of a constellation) with mac and cheese.
The newly named stars include “Bunchanoodles Stucktogether,” “Caseus Macaronius,” “KTCHP-57” and “BL1000000” (a likely reference to the Barenaked Ladies song “If I Had $1,000,000,” which references Kraft Dinner and was also the basis for a 2020 ad campaign starring former lead singer Steven Page).
The new campaign joins a growing list of talk-worthy marketing initiatives for KD, which includes last year’s introduction of a Pumpkin Spice variant; a candy flavoured version for Valentine’s Day; and an unlikely partnership with Olympic race walker Evan Dunfee.
KD is supporting its latest promotion with a social contest inviting Canadians to share a photo of their own empty pot on social media, tagging KD and using the hashtag #KraftDipper, for a chance to have the pot filled with KD.
“We know how much Canadians love to eat KD their own way, often straight from the pot… Knowing the Big Dipper is the biggest of all pots, we knew we had to fill it with the goodness of KD,” said Ishani Patel, brand manager, brand building and innovation, Kraft Heinz Canada, in a release.
”We’re always looking for clever and fun ways to engage and reward our fans, and turning the Big Dipper into the most delicious pot of KD in the universe, while filling Canadians’ empty pots, felt like the perfect synergy.”
Middle Child (formerly The Colony Project) handled PR for the campaign, with Carat for media.
It takes about 210 years for the light from The Big Dipper’s most distant star, Alkaid, to reach Earth, which might unofficially make this the longest-running ad campaign in history—far surpassing De Beers’ “A diamond lasts forever,” which was introduced in 1947 and is regarded as the current record holder.
