This week Kraft announced big changes to its famous macaroni and cheese recipe … three months after it happened. The brand launched a comprehensive marketing campaign to promote these changes through traditional advertisements as well as social media. While it was a risk, this campaign has had heads turning all week. Here’s a taste of the new recipe:
Social Spotlight
This week, The Kraft Heinz Company announced a campaign that is now becoming known as “the world’s largest blind taste test,” – although it actually began last year.
In April of 2015, the company announced plans to make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese free of artificial preservatives and dyes and throughout the rest of the year, it did just that – but silently. Since the new Kraft Macaroni and Cheese recipe has been on shelves, more than 50 million boxes have sold and hardly anyone has noticed a difference in taste.
Kraft finally publicized the change this week through a series of TV commercials, social media posts and print advertisements with the slogan, “It’s changed. But it hasn’t.” and the hashtag #didntnotice. Some social media posts highlight other major events that have happened while the new recipe has been on the market that have had people talking to emphasize how undetected the new recipe is: 
Kraft has made its point – it’s still the same classic macaroni and cheese America has always known and loved. Gouda-job, Kraft!
PR Lessons From Kraft
Kraft’s reverse announcement strategy is unique. Instead of making a big deal about the ingredient changes before the product hit the market, Kraft sat back and watched to see people’s unbiased reactions. Here are the lessons we took away from the silent taste test:
Kraft took a risk.
This could have gone very wrong. Fortunately, this plan worked out in Kraft’s favor. If the new recipe hit shelves and consumers were able to tell something was up right away, fans might have felt like Kraft was trying to hide or deceive its fans. Kraft could easily have been handling a crisis instead of celebrating a victory.
There was no lack of planning.
While it might seem like Kraft could have just been holding its breath waiting to see how the public reacted to the new recipe, there was no doubt a lot of planning behind this campaign. The traditional advertisements and social media posts were prepared and ready to go when the time was right.
Don’t be afraid to have a little fun.
This “we fooled you!” approach to announcing the macaroni and cheese changes is fun, catchy and different. This announcement had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese lovers doing a double-take!
It’s smart.
This was a smart way to gauge how fans would receive the new product. Instead of creating a big marketing campaign to make fans aware that a healthier change is coming, they stayed silent to combat perceptions that taking out these ingredients would change the taste everyone loves.
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