Hasta La Creative!

As we mentioned in Stir yesterday morning, Kraft has decided to drop the “steak” from A.1.’s title, now calling it A.1. Original Sauce. Now we have an online spot from CP+B to go along with the name change, explaining the nature of A.1.’s evolving relationship with steak.

In CP+B’s “New Friend Requests,” the Boulder-based agency imagines A.1. rethinking its commitment to steak via Facebook. We see posts of the two together, one of which contains the line “It’s just you and me forever.” But then A.1. gets new friend requests, first from pork, then from myriad other foods. This leads to the sauce changing its relationship status with steak to “It’s complicated,” citing a need to “see other foods.” Initially steak doesn’t take too kindly to this, but eventually steak and A.1. reconcile, with the spot ending with the tagline, “For almost everything. Almost.” The idea is about equal parts clever and goofy, but CP+B mostly make it work, although the spot could have benefited from a shortened run time (it clocks in at 2 minutes). Both the name change and the “For almost everything. Almost.” campaign stem from insights into diehard A1 users, who use the sauce on everything from chicken, pork, and fish to vegetables.

The “For almost everything. Almost.” campaign will also include TV spots, which debut Monday, the first from the brand in five years, in addition to digital, social, radio, out of home and in-store activations. Stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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Vanilla Ice appears as a grocery store worker stocking shelves and rocking out to his own “Ninja Rap” in a new spot from CP+B promoting Kraft’s ubiquitous macaroni and cheese-like food product, now with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shaped pasta.

The spot plays on the nostalgic humor surrounding Vanilla Ice when a mom starts singing and dancing along with him. Her son is not pleased by this turn of events, and he angrily puts the box of Kraft Mac+Cheese in the cart and walks away as Ice–aka Rob Van Winkle–utters his trademark “Word to your mother” line. CP+B will run with several #WordToYourMother memes over the course of the new campaign, and also plans to reward the brand’s “most fervent Facebook & Twitter fans with Golden Autographs –limited edition boxes of Kraft TMNT Mac & Cheese that were props featured in the commercial and signed by Vanilla Ice himself.” Because Vanilla Ice autographs are still something people want, apparently.

The new campaign is a fun continuation of Kraft’s “You Know You Love It” and a fond reminder of TMNT days gone by for those of us who grew up with the turtles. Now, before Michael Bay ruins the franchise, let’s all take a moment to remember this wonderfully terrible moment in cinematic history:

If you still haven’t had enough of Vanilla Ice (You’ve had over 20 years to have enough of Vanilla Ice, what’s wrong with you?) stick around for a behind the scenes video, along with credits, after the jump. continued…

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