Kraft Peanut Butter launches platform all about Canada

Who: Kraft Heinz, with Rethink for strategy and creative, Carat for media, The Kitchen for social, and Middle Child for PR.

What: “Long Distance,” a TV ad to launch a new brand platform for Kraft Peanut Butter: “Famous at Home” (replacing “Stick Together”) emphasizing that it is a uniquely Canadian peanut butter.

When & Where: It’s a full 360-campaign, live now.

Why: In the past Kraft has only “implied” that it is a Canada-only brand, said brand manager Marie-Claire Hurtado. That approach was seen in the Beijing Olympics advertising showing the peanut butter providing Canada’s athletes with a sense of home as they competed. With this new platform, the brand is moving from implied Canadian-ness to putting it front and centre.

“While Canadians know and love Kraft Peanut Butter, many are still shocked to learn that it is an exclusively Canadian product,” said Hurtado. “With “Famous at Home,” this is the first time we are overtly showing Canadians that Kraft Peanut Butter is an iconic Canadian product that they can feel pride and ownership for.”

How: “The brief was to get Canadians who already buy Kraft Peanut Butter out of habit to feel unwavering love for Kraft Peanut Butter by showing them that no other peanut butter is Canada’s peanut butter,” said Hurtado.

The launch spot shows a woman moving to France to be with the man she loves as a rendition of Roxette’s “Must Have Been Love” plays in the background. The problem is that she really, really loves Kraft Peanut Butter, and so when she discovers he’s never even heard of it, she’s on the next flight back to Canada. The closing super “Only available in Canada” appears on screen as the volume on the song rises: “It must have been love, but it’s over now.”

And we quote: “[T]his ad wasn’t about changing perceptions of the product, but rather evolving the love Canadians have as individuals for our peanut butter into a shared love and sense of ownership for the brand as Canadians.”— Marie-Claire Hurtado, brand manager, Kraft Peanut Butter

David Brown