© Provided by Food & WineKraft
All macaroni and cheese is great in my book. Any kind of cheese. Any shape of pasta. Stovetop or oven-baked. Give me all of it! And yet, when asked to conjure macaroni and cheese in my mind, the first image is of slim tiny tubes with a bright orange hue: that supermarket staple, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. With brand recognition like that, you'd think Kraft could just sit back and let the sales roll in, but recently, the marketing team behind the blue-boxed meal has been working overtime. Last month, Kraft grabbed headlines by cheekily rebranding their classic "dinner" as Kraft Mac & Cheese Breakfast. Now, another cheesy publicity stunt: Kraft is going seasonal and releasing the limited-edition Kraft Pumpkin Spice Macaroni & Cheese.
© KraftAfter generating huge interest in Canada, the seasonal Kraft Dinner flavor no one asked for is coming to the USA.
The concept kicked off earlier this week in Canada where "Kraft Dinner"-as the pasta dish is called up north-is even more of a cultural phenomenon. Kraft says that when they announced the release of Kraft Pumpkin Spice Macaroni & Cheese there, over 30,000 Canadians signed up for an online waitlist in the first 48 hours. Today, it's Americans' turn.
"Do you want to win a box of limited edition Pumpkin Spice Kraft Mac & Cheese?" the brand posted on its official Twitter page this morning. "Of course you do! Tag us in a tweet with #PumpkinSpiceKMC + #Sweepstakes for a chance to win."
From now until September 29, simply toss those hashtags in a tweet to @KraftMacNCheese and your account will be entered. Entries are limited to one per account, so no need to tweet over and over. Also, per the official rules, keep your tweet otherwise clean or you could be disqualified. Then, around September 30, 1,000 lucky winners will be randomly selected and notified on Twitter. That's it.
Of course, we've gotten a bit ahead of ourselves, glossing over the question of what exactly is Kraft Pumpkin Spice Macaroni & Cheese? Per the brand's description, it's "the same cheesy Mac & Cheese Americans know and love, now with added fall flavors: hints of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger." Whether that's something you'd actually want to eat is another question entirely. But hey, if it's good enough for Canada, it's gotta be good enough for the ol' U.S. of A., too, right?
"After seeing the huge response Pumpkin Spice Mac & Cheese received north of the border, and even hearing some heated debates about it down here, we had to bring it to the U.S. for Americans to try," Martina Davis, brand manager for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, said in the announcement. "Who knows? Maybe it could become a new North American fall favorite."
Skeptical? You're not alone. Yesterday, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese posted a Twitter poll asking who would give this limited-edition product a try. With over 15,000 votes counted, "Hm, I'd give it a shot" has captured over half the votes, beating out the more enthusiastic answers "Yaaaaasss!" and "Pumpkin Spice Everything" combined. Apparently even fans dedicated enough to follow the brand on Twitter have their doubts. But hey, as I said up top, all mac and cheese is good in my book. Pretty much.