Kraft Dinner is a beloved brand in Quebec. The macaroni and cheese is considered a simple and always comforting pleasure. However, contrary to total sales in Canada, Kraft Dinner's baseline was declining in Quebec, caused, in part, by a lack of consumer support invested in Quebec in the last 10 years. While Kraft Dinner's awareness remained high, the quality of its brand equity was low.

The challenge was to develop a new brand-equity-building campaign to freshen up the brand and deliver incremental volume by making it more relevant to Quebec's unique culture. The objective was to achieve 15% growth by the end of the year.

The brand wanted Quebeckers to rediscover their taste for Kraft Dinner. Once they're adults, some Quebeckers leave it behind because it seems like college food.

Kraft Dinner is a guilty pleasure. So the approach plays on the feelings of guilt about eating Kraft Dinner, as well as the reluctance to admit to eating it.

The integrated campaign, built around the tagline "Shamefully good," was rolled out across print and out-of-home (transit shelters, vertical boards, wild postings, station backlits), and included a TV spot and a stunt.

Out-of-home featured individuals who didn't really fit in with our idea of the typical Kraft Dinner consumer. All have their eyes blocked, like a censor bar, by a box of Kraft Dinner. The familiar, famous face of Quebec television host Dany Turcotte was hidden among them.

In print, this famous host "came out of the pantry" by revealing his favourite Kraft Dinner recipe in cooking magazines.

His involvement got people talking. In the Sept. 22, 2013, episode of Radio-Canada's Tout le monde en parle, Dany Turcotte's co-workers served him Kraft Dinner in front of over one million viewers and made him a censorship bar like the one in the print campaign. By turning a bus shelter into a free Kraft Dinner-box dispenser, the brand became partners in crime of Kraft Dinner lovers.

The TV spot showed an affluent man enjoying his Kraft Dinner, after which, he removes all traces of his "crime" by taking out the recycling bin.

Kraft Dinner sales went up by 17.4% in three months.