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Kraft Quietly Retools Its Mac and Cheese When a company rebrands a popular produ

ID: 364681 • Letter: K

Question

Kraft Quietly Retools Its Mac and Cheese When a company rebrands a popular product chey usually alert the public to the upcoming changes through a widespread man campaign. For iconic food and drink brands, however, the process isn't as After all, every marketer remembers what happened when Coca-Cola Consumers reacted viciously to the soft launched its New Coke brand in the 1990s. repair Executives at Kraft took horror s s revamped recipe, creating a rift with the public that took Coca-Cola years to to overhau stories ike these to heart when they decided company's famous macaroni and cheese. For three years Kraft researched and developed a new formula that natural ingredients. While these are demand in their food, the company worried that people would revolt against any exchanged artificial preservatives and synthetic dyes for precisely the qualities that many consumers now alterations to such a famous product. These fears became somewhat justified in Apri 2015 when Kraft announced how the contents of their little blue boxes would change. Many people went to social media to vent their concerns, with some even claiming that they could already taste the difference This response alarmed Kraft, which was still months away from actually producing the new recipe. As a result, the company's marketing team decided to keep quiet once the retooled mac and cheese began landing on store shelves in December 2015. Along with steering clear of any advertising, Kraft updated the ingredients list on the blue box but didn't change the packaging in any other way. The max and cheese looked the same out of the box, too, retaining its signature orange color as well as its taste. Consumers apparently didn't notice any difference: Kraft sold more than 50 million boxes of the new mac and cheese without making a peep. After a few months on the market, Kraft finally broke their silence in an ad campaign that featured the tagline, "We'd invite you to try it, but you already have. Thanks to this stealthy strategy, Kraft was able to seamlessly improve one of its signature foods without causing any consumer uproar Questions: Why do consumers become strongly attached to certain food and beverage brands? 1. 2. Would New Coke have been successful if Coca-Cola employed a similar strategy as Kraft did for its mac and cheese? Source: Martha C. White, "Kraft Reveals Revamped Mac and Cheese, 50 Million Boxes Later," The New York Times, March 20, 2016. Photo by Mike Mozart. Coca-Cola Eood. Krat. Macketing. Packaging Product Dervelopment Promotions

Explanation / Answer

Answer:- It has been observed that the customers become strongly attached to a certain food and beverages brands. The main reason behind this strong brand loyalty is that the customers become familiarize with the type of products which is being offered to them. Every person has his or her likings and disliking when it comes to food and these likings and disliking are so severe that they can even remain hungry but they will not have the disliked food. This can be typically seen even in normal household setups where kids do not like some vegetables.

This specific liking and disliking make a strong presence in the mind of the customers and they tend to consume these products. If there will be any kind of change in the ingredients, flavours, taste or any other aspect of the food and beverage, then there are greater possibilities that customers may not like it. There are many real-life examples related to Lays, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s where these companies came up with some new products or changed their authentic product and were failed to attract the customers.

Answer:- In my opinion, there is no surety that the similar type of strategy which was adopted by Kraft could be fruitful for Coca-Cola too as the nature of the product is totally different along with that the customers buying these soft drinks may have different preferences. In case of Kraft, they changed the products into a more organic formation but when these things would have been applied to Coca-Cola the consumers might have noticed it easily and can have a negative attitude towards the brand. Thus I am not sure whether the similar strategy can be successful for Coca-Cola or any other brand.