Kraft has axed its 'send noods' campaign following backlash

Earlier this year, Kraft came up with what it thought would be a fun idea for National Noodle Day (October 6th). Inspired by the cultural phenomenon of "send nudes", Kraft decided to run a competition on social media where people would be encouraged to upload pictures of their Mac & Cheese ('noods', if you will) to social media using the hashtag #SendNoods and tagging Kraft Mac & Cheese on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. The first 7,000 people to do this would recieve a free box of Kraft Mac & Cheese to send to a friend or a family member.

Sounds pretty innocent and all in good fun, right? Well, a lot of people didn't see it that way. Pretty much as soon as the campaign started Kraft received what was quite positively a torrent of negative comments on its social media platforms. Many of those complaints were from parents who thought that running a campaign playing off the trope of sending nudes was absolutely innapropriate considering that Kraft Mac & Cheese is a product that's often eaten and enjoyed by kids. "This is not okay," one concerned parent commented. "Don’t you realize that a huge portion of the people who actually eat your mac n’ cheese are children?!" Some concerned people posting about the campaign also used hashtags and talking points associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory, a controversial "think of the children" style movement associated with the American right.

Speaking to BuzzFeed News about the situation, Kraft Heinz's spokesperson Lynne Galia said that the campaign was done simply to encourage adults to "send free noodles to loved ones to provide comfort and make them smile." Galia also stated that the company was well aware of the backlash and, since the campaign had already ended by this point, the content would "be removed from our channels." Something positive did come out of the campaign for the business though; Galia stated that "the social promotion resulted in over 20,000 consumers across the country receiving boxes of America’s favorite Kraft Mac and Cheese." I guess in some cases there really is no such thing as bad publicity!