Behind Kraft Singles rap battle marketing and other pop culture plays

Me vs. the three of y’all and I’m still matching the energy/No wonder, I’m the only one here that’s ‘[w]rapped’ individually. 🎤

That’s one of many clever rhymes in an animated rap battle taking place in a refrigerator between Kraft’s “Slim Single” and so-called higher-shelf cheeses Gouda, brie and sharp cheddar. The “Fancy Cheese Takedown” video is no walkover for Kraft Singles. All of the combatants get in some hard shots—“You’re lunch box food to me /Only bought if you shop frugally,” Gouda slurs; Cheddar calls Singles “the hot dog of cheeses”—with each diss drawing gasps from other denizens of the fridge, before things come to a messy conclusion.

The video, created by rapper and producer Illmac, has had nearly 6 million views since its Nov. 2 release. It is one example of how Kraft Singles has moved to embrace pop culture—particularly hip-hop culture—in support of the “Square It” brand platform launched last year by agency Johannes Leonardo.

Illmac has a YouTube channel that’s filled with cartoon rap battles. Did you engage him to actually write the piece?

We did. We’ve been hands off the wheel—we said, “Here is the tone of the voice, here are the reasons we know we’re an amazingly melty, iconic cheese. Help us demonstrate that while engaging your audience.”

The creative team at JL found what Illmac had created. [Illmac] had done ketchup vs. mustard in a fridge, and it had amazing engagement and reviews. It was awesome. So, we were like, let’s just approach them and see if they’ll work with us. We told the story about why we want to work with him and why we believe we're totally brazen and the best, and he said yes.

All of the lyrics were created by him and his team, all the animation was done in-house by his studio—they are incredibly talented. They were a true collaborative partner and as I said earlier, we were hands off the wheel. As a brand manager, you want to have a lot of control over creativity but for this one, we intentionally did not take that path. We had the upfront brief, and throughout the process we were with him as he wrote the lyrics, and he really knocked it out of the park.

Do you see any benefits from this movement that you can quantify?

Yes, we’ve seen over 6 million views of the various forms of the creative battle, 2 million were done organically before we put paid against any of the assets, so it had already taken off, which is amazing. What’s more, within the first 24 hours it went live, we saw some social conversations literally mentioning Kraft Singles than we did in any month in the entire year of 2022. I’m thrilled with how it came off. My favorite thing is looking at the comments. If you scroll through it, you can see people quoting their favorite bars. It feels really authentic, and that people are acknowledging that the product is awesome without us having to force that.

What is ahead for Square It?

We believe the music space, particularly hip-hop and rap, is resonating with consumers so we’re hoping to expand it.