Dive Brief:

• Kraft Heinz has a new campaign that needles McDonald’s to add its Mac & Cheese boxed dinner to Big Mac burgers, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
• A new website, WheresTheMac.com, lets users unleash bots to tweetstorm McDonald’s, draft their own personalized Tweet that will tag McDonald’s, or fill out the fast-food chain’s feedback form asking the Kraft product be added to its burgers.
• After Tweeting, consumers will get a coupon for a free box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. The campaign is in response to online recipes that call for adding macaroni and cheese to grilled cheese sandwiches and other dishes, per the CPG marketer.

Dive Insight:

The promo follows Kraft’s recent rebranding of its popular product to simply “Kraft Mac & Cheese,” in a bid to reinforce its positioning as comfort food for both children and adults. It arrives as Kraft Heinz has been leaning into quirky tactics to market its products. By specifically calling out McDonald’s in its messaging, Kraft Heinz has the opportunity to tap into the fast food chain’s loyal customer base – one it likely sees as having cross-over with Mac & Cheese fans — to drive engagement with the campaign. 

The efforts are part of a company-wide initiative to modernize its brands through “anti-advertising,” Kylea Pittrich, a senior associate brand manager for American Slices, told Forbes earlier this year. 

“Our marketing efforts are inspired by moving away from tired and traditional tactics and instead focus on creating cultural relevance and finding new and exciting ways to engage with our consumers,” Pittrich said in the report.

This latest stunt is no different. When consumers go to the “Where’s the Mac?” dedicated website, their pre-populated Tweet reads, “I’ve been told to follow my dreams, so here I am, chasing the mac @mcdonalds #wheresthemac.” 

In a release, Kraft Heinz said the promo is fueled by a trend of adding macaroni and cheese to various other foods such as grilled-cheese sandwiches, pizza, French fries and even non-McDonald’s burgers. 

Earlier this year, Kraft Heinz launched a campaign that celebrated consumers’ unique and peculiar mayonnaise connections with the divisive condiment, encouraging mayo lovers to “Let Your Mayo Freak Flag Fly.” A February campaign for its Kraft Singles brand involved commissioning Milkshake singer-songwriter Kellis to pen a tune that identified different ways to use the square cheese slices.