Category Captain: Cooking Crème: Kraft Foods

Kraft Foods created new excitement in the dairy aisle this year with the introduction of Philadelphia Cooking Crème. Designed to offer busy consumers ease in cooking, recipe versatility and restaurant-quality taste, the new item builds on Kraft’s brand equity among home cooks.

To ensure Cooking Crème’s retail success, Kraft assembled a $30 million, 360-degree marketing program to ignite and sustain consumer interest, drive speed to shelf, and drive enthusiastic activation. Kraft Kitchens recipe creations, sampling and meal solution partnerships were at the heart of the support plan.

Cooking Crème was also seeded with the brand’s Real Women of Philly online community to build pre-launch enthusiasm and further add to recipe versatility. Because Kraft knew that “eating was believing,” the company teamed with HSN to execute cooking events in more than 10,000 U.S. homes, as well as going mobile in 10 major markets with on-the-street sampling.

Capitalizing on Cooking Crème’s ability to inspire total meal solution purchases, Kraft joined forces with retailers by offering $1.50 IRCs on fresh chicken -- an offer 20,000-plus retail stores activated against.

Nielsen data through May showed Cooking Crème fueled more than eight points of growth in the brand’s dollar sales, and drove expansion of the category at nearly the same pace. Consumer trial and repeat data show that Cooking Crème is 80 percent incremental to the category, sourcing volume from products in other categories, such as condensed soup, meat enhancers and sour cream. These are typically lower-priced products, highlighting Cooking Crème’s ability to add incremental dollars to shopping baskets.

As Kraft sees it, Cooking Crème is more than a product innovation. It’s an important first step in the supplier’s effort to help grocery retailers reimagine and grow their entire dairy business. The company has launched a multifaceted dairy aisle innovation initiative called “Reimagining Cheese & Dairy.” Kraft’s vision is to build dairy by inventing against insight-driven platforms within each section. For instance, cooking with cheese is a $5 billion market, and Kraft has identified three platforms to drive its growth: ingredient, fast scratch and ready-to-eat.