Kraft Foods, Inc.

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Kraft Foods, Inc.

IT'S HOW TO UNPLUG CAMPAIGN
IT'S NOT DELIVERY, IT'S DIGIORNO CAMPAIGN

3 Lakes Dr.
Northfield, Illinois 60093-2753
USA
Telephone: (847) 646-2000
Web site: www.kraftfoods.com

IT'S HOW TO UNPLUG CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

The "It's How to Unplug" advertising campaign, handled by the New York office of Young & Rubicam, encouraged women to pause during busy days and relax with a cup of General Foods International Coffees, made by Kraft Foods, Inc. "Inhale the subtle cinnamon aroma. Sip slowly until you unplug," suggested a magazine advertisement announcing that Cafe Vienna—one of the brand's many varieties—had been reformulated with a richer, creamier taste. Since their launch in the early 1970s, General Foods International Coffees had been marketed with an emphasis on the idea that drinking them was almost like taking a vacation, because they resembled beverages a traveler might enjoy while touring Europe and other faraway places. Although competing lines of flavored coffees continued to multiply while demand for instant coffees in general decreased throughout the 1990s, General Foods International Coffees remained one of the most popular brands in the United States. The "It's How to Unplug" campaign ran in print and broadcast media during 1997 and 1998.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

General Foods International Coffees were introduced in 1973 by General Foods Corporation. Founded in 1895 by Charles William (C.W.) Post in Battle Creek, Michigan, the firm was originally called Postum Cereal Company Ltd., but in 1922 its name was changed to General Foods. In 1985 the company was purchased by Philip Morris Companies Inc. Three years later Philip Morris also acquired Kraft, Inc., a major manufacturer of cheese and other food products since 1903. The two firms were soon combined to form the nation's largest food company, Kraft General Foods, which was reorganized in 1995 as Kraft Foods, Inc.

The numerous brands made by General Foods included Grape Nuts and Post Toasties cereals, Jell-O gelatin, Log Cabin syrup, Calumet baking powder, Birdseye frozen foods, Oscar Mayer meat products, and a cereal beverage named Postum. For many years the company's Maxwell House coffee was advertised with the famous slogan "Good to the last drop." According to legend, the statement was originally made by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 when he tasted the blend in the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville. In 1988 General Foods introduced Private Collection, a line extension of Maxwell House that featured eight varieties of gourmet coffee beans that consumers could grind at supermarket displays to suit their preferences. Private Collection was intended primarily for professional consumers more than 30 years of age with annual incomes of at least $35,000. In 1992 Maxwell House Cappuccino was introduced as a premium coffee aimed at women more than 35 years of age. General Foods also manufactured ground and instant Sanka, which had been introduced in 1927 as the nation's first decaffeinated coffee and which was most popular with older consumers. During 1998 Kraft promoted Sanka with the tag line "Everything you love about coffee." In addition to Maxwell House and Sanka, Kraft marketed ground and instant Yuban, a coffee made with Colombian beans and billed as "the richest coffee in the world."

General Foods International Coffees were powdered instant beverages complete with nondairy creamer, designed to be stirred into hot water or milk. All 18 varieties in the line were presweetened, but some contained no sugar, no fat, and no caffeine. Chocolate, cinnamon, nonalcoholic liqueurs, and other specialty ingredients were added to make blends such as Orange Cappuccino, Cafe Francais, Cafe Vienna, Irish Mocha Mint, Suisse Mocha, and Kahlua Cafe. Kraft also made a related line of powdered General Foods International English Teasin flavors that included English Breakfast Creme, Viennese Creme, and Island Orange Creme. They were promoted as "tea you scoop instead of steep."

Early advertising for General Foods International Coffees featured spokeswoman Carol Lawrence discussing her European travels and noting that she enjoyed coffee that reminded her of Vienna and other places. "Now I can have the flavor of a European coffeehouse in my own house," read the headline in a magazine advertisement in 1975. Another ad showed Lawrence seated among ferns that bordered an Italian-style lily pond. "I love Italy. I love coffee. I suppose that's why I love everything about Orange Cappuccino," read the headline. Later ads suggested combining the instant coffee with ice cream to make a cool summer drink. Some of the advertisement featured the tag line "It's our flavor that makes us special," while others used the long-running slogan "Celebrate the moments of your life." A campaign during the mid-1990s showed cups of coffee against uncluttered landscapes. "New Irish Cream Cafe. Escape to your own Emerald Isle," read one headline. Steam from the coffee cup formed the ghostly image of a castle against a background of velvety green pasture. Another ad showed the sun setting above the ocean while steam in the shape of a palm tree wafted from a coffee cup. "Escape to your own little island," read the headline.

TARGET MARKET

Many advertisements for General Foods International Coffees revolved around visiting a friend, spending time with a husband and children, and other emotional moments. General Foods had identified the needs of its target market by conducting focus groups, often led by psychologists who asked women questions such as how they felt before and after drinking coffee, what sort of people they thought would drink General Foods International Coffees, and how the brand might be incorporated into a person's dreams. The research revealed that most women who purchased the product were amiable, warm, and employed but not obsessed with their careers. Early advertisements for the brand were slanted toward college-age women who had visited foreign countries or who planned to travel some day. The ads were also aimed at nurturing homemakers who drank flavored coffees as a special treat. Over the years the ads showed more interaction among family members, friends, and people who worked together. The "It's How to Unplug" campaign targeted the brand's traditional customers (women 25 to 54 years old) with an emphasis on the idea that General Foods International Coffees could be a pleasant, relaxing self-indulgence amid the pressures of everyday life.

During the 1990s demand for the plain ground coffee typically sold in supermarkets declined. Some Americans drank less coffee because they were concerned that caffeine might harm their health. In addition, many consumers experimented with trendy gourmet blends, while others switched to soft drinks. Positioned as a premium brand that offered a wide assortment of flavors, General Foods International Coffees were often seen as a substitute for a sweet snack. Further, because the coffees came in powder form, the consumer could control the strength of the drink.

MUSICAL KIOSKS

In 1994 General Foods International Coffees were advertised on interactive kiosks in music stores. Consumers could watch videos and read music reviews while listening to tracks from more than 40,000 albums. Between selections they saw 10-second advertisements aimed at specific ethnic or age groups or at people interested in certain types of music. To use the kiosks, consumers were required to reveal demographic information such as income, age, address, and favorite genre of music. By the end of November 1994 profiles of 820,000 people who used kiosks nationwide had been compiled into a customer database.

COMPETITION

In 1990, at a time when total sales of instant coffee had declined by 9.4 percent in 12 months, sales of General Foods International Coffees increased by 11 percent to $115.9 million. Advertising Age reported that by 1995, with 4.7 percent of the U.S. market, General Foods International Coffees was the fourth most popular coffee of any kind, behind Folgers with 27.4 percent, Maxwell House with 19.2 percent, and private-label brands with 7.6 percent. Hills Bros. and Maxwell House Master Blend each had 4.1 percent, and Taster's Choice had 4.0 percent.

Leading the trend toward specialty coffees, Starbucks Corporation expanded its market rapidly during 1998 by offering premium blends at 3,500 supermarkets in selected regions of the United States. Until 1997 the company had sold coffee primarily through its coffee shops, an idea inspired by the espresso bars of Italy. Founded at Pike's Place Market in Seattle in 1971, the Starbucks chain grew slowly to five cafés by 1982 and then mushroomed to 1,000 by 1996. During 1998 Starbucks opened its first coffee shops in Europe and launched a 250-page Internet site where customers could order coffee on-line. The site included a Coffee Taste Matcher to help consumers decide which of the company's numerous products they would like to sample.

In 1997, according to Advertising Age, Procter & Gamble Company spent $65.9 million to advertise its Folgers brand. In April 1998, after Procter & Gamble reduced the price of its instant and ground Folgers coffees by 10 cents, Kraft cut the price of selected Maxwell House coffees by about twice as much. Procter & Gamble had introduced Folgers Custom Blend in 1991 and followed with Folgers French Roast Regular Coffee and Custom Roast Folgers. The company also competed with Starbucks by purchasing the gourmet Millstone brand of specialty coffees in 1995. Within three years Millstone was available at 7,000 supermarkets.

Hills Bros. and Taster's Choice were both made by Nestlé SA, a company based in Switzerland. Its Nescafé brand, one of the first instant coffees launched in the United States and the most popular brand of coffee in the world, had U.S. sales of $14 million in 1998. Nestlé introduced Hills Bros. French Roast in 1992 and in 1994 launched Taster's Choice Flavored Coffee, an instant coffee that was available in Irish crème French vanilla, and hazelnut flavors. Taster's Choice had been advertised for years with the "Romantic Neighbors" campaign, a series of episodes that chronicled the budding romance between two sophisticated neighbors. In 1998 Nestlé launched a new ad campaign to announce that Taster's Choice had been reformulated. The campaign's first television commercial showed various people drinking coffee, and then, through special effects, the pictures were combined to form the image of a coffee cup and a jar of Taster's Choice.

Nestlé also made Coffee-Mate creamers in flavors such as Irish crème and amaretto. Although only 12 percent of American households tended to purchase flavored coffee creamers, the category was growing at a rate of more than 20 percent each year and had sales of nearly $400 million in 1998. Another company, Suiza Foods, made International Delight creamers in hazelnut, French vanilla, and Irish crème flavors. Aimed primarily at women, the product line included single-serve creamers that consumers often added to ordinary coffee at work or in other settings away from home.

DECORATIVE TINS

General Foods International Coffees were sold in rectangular or oblong tins with ring-pull opening tabs and resealable plastic lids. To help establish a brand identity and to increase sales, the limited-edition tins were sometimes decorated with special designs that encouraged consumers to collect and save them. When a new series of designs was placed on the market, many people purchased an entire set. Floral motifs, reproductions of quilts, European cityscapes, and landscapes were a few of the themes used over the years, with each promotion usually running for about six months. For one series contemporary artists were commissioned to create work that looked as if it had been done by four great European artists: Vincent van Gogh, Pieter Brueghel, Jean-Honor, Fragonard, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Kraft sometimes packaged other products, such as Maxwell House Cappuccino, in designer tins as well.

MARKETING STRATEGY

The Young & Rubicam advertising agency developed the "It's How to Unplug" campaign to improve brand awareness and to encourage women to drink General Foods International Coffees more frequently. The ads conveyed the message that rich, creamy coffee was a satisfying indulgence to lift the spirits, alleviate stress, and help people enjoy the simple pleasures of life. The campaign ran in print and broadcast media during 1997 and 1998. According to Competitive Media Reporting, Kraft spent $41.2 million to advertise General Foods International Coffees in 1997 and planned to increase its budget by at least $4 million in 1998. Advertising Age reported that the brand's advertising budget had been $33.6 million in 1992 and $37.2 million in 1995.

In the fall of 1998 Kraft budgeted an estimated $7 million for television commercials, print advertisements, and freestanding inserts to support the relaunch of Viennese Chocolate Cafe. An advertisement in People magazine in November showed an Austrian style of building with a window framed by lace curtains. Bright red flowers below the window emphasized the red in an awning above, which looked exactly like a tin of Viennese Chocolate Cafe. In an elegant typestyle the headline read, "Take the time to stop and smell the chocolate." The ad featured only two additional lines of text: "It's the perfectly chocolate way to unplug. General Foods International Coffees." Viennese Chocolate Cafe had been introduced in 1992 and was relaunched in 1998 after the company's research indicated that chocolate ranked high among consumers' favorite flavors of coffee, second only to vanilla. In 1998 Kraft also launched Cappuccino Coolers, sweetened blends of General Foods International Coffees in hazelnut and French vanilla flavors intended to be mixed with milk and ice and served cold.

OUTCOME

For the fiscal year that ended May 24, 1998, General Foods International Coffees had 19 percent of the market for instant coffee, with sales of $165.7 million, according to Brandweek. That year the instant coffee segment of the beverage industry was valued at $855.3 million. Demand for instant coffees sold in supermarkets continued to decline during 1999, however, as consumers purchased Starbucks and other alternative brands. To attract younger consumers, Nestlé relaunched Taster's Choice Instant Coffees in 1999 and introduced a line extension of its Nescafé brand named Frothe, a foamy beverage available in six flavors. Frothe was intended to compete directly with General Foods International Coffees, particularly Cappuccino Coolers. Meanwhile, Procter & Gamble launched the Folgers Whole Bean line of six premium blends, including hazelnut, French vanilla, and French roast flavors.

In March 1999 Kraft ran a sweepstakes to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the launch of General Foods International Coffees. Prizes included two $2,500 cash awards and a trip for two to Paris. A new tag line for General Foods International Coffees, "It stirs the soul," was introduced in February. Like previous advertising for the brand, the new campaign emphasized the satisfying, contemplative state of mind that consumers experienced while relaxing with a cup of their favorite coffee. Television commercials featured actor Armand Assante narrating while women sipped coffee beside a fireplace and on the shore of a lake. One magazine advertisement featured a photograph of flowers, a garden path, an empty chair, and the sun setting over a grassy field. "It's that moment when you discover there's a resort outside your back door," read the headline.

IT'S NOT DELIVERY, IT'S DIGIORNO CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

Owned since 1988 by the Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Kraft is the largest U.S.-based packaged food company in the world. It traces its history to three separate and successful entrepreneurs of the late-19th and early-20th centuries: J. L. Kraft, who began a wholesale cheese business in Chicago in 1903; Oscar Mayer, who in 1906 was one of the first meat packers to receive a Federal Meat Inspection stamp of approval; and C. W. Post, who put Grape-Nuts cereal on the market in 1897. Kraft owns and markets more than 70 major brands, many of which were the first of their kind and have become deeply entrenched in 20th-century American popular culture, most notably Velveeta cheese, Jell-O gelatin, Kool-Aid, Kraft cheeses, Oscar Mayer meats, Maxwell House coffees, Post ready-to-eat cereals, Stove Top stuffing mixes, and Miracle Whip salad dressing. In 1989 Kraft introduced a newcomer to that august family of products: DiGiorno brand refrigerated pastas and sauces. Kraft's long history of food industry firsts continued when the company expanded the DiGiorno brand line in 1995 by introducing DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza, the first frozen pizza with a fresh-frozen, not precooked, crust.

Using an advertising campaign designed by Foote Cone & Belding, Chicago, that included in-store product sampling as well as television and print advertising, DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza met with immediate positive response. The campaign, with a reported $11 million budget, kicked off on television in select markets in 1996 and 1997. Print advertising continued the campaign in 1998. The campaign was updated and enhanced in subsequent years to support extensions to the rising crust pizza line.

DiGiorno was a breakout success in its category; in its first year, even before it was in national distribution, it had sales of $125 million, and it ended 1997 with a sales volume of $200 million. In fact, DiGiorno became one of the fastest product successes ever at Kraft, rivaling Oscar Mayer Lunchables for its speed in breaking the $100 million sales mark while at the same time garnering a repeat purchase rate of 50 percent. The campaign's tagline, "It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno," successfully drove home the message with consumers that the DiGiorno was as good as the pizza delivered from their favorite take-out pizzeria.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

In the summer of 1997 Kraft downsized its corporate structure, merging several divisions and creating a joint coffee and cereals division, a beverages and desserts division, and a "New Meals" division, into which category DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza was placed. The reorganization fell together with changes in the executive ranks—Bob Eckert was named president and CEO following the departure of Robert Morrison in October 1997—and with an agency realignment. Kraft ended its relationship with the New York-based Grey Advertising, Inc. Its remaining agencies include Foote Cone & Belding and Leo Burnett, both of Chicago, and New York's Ogilvy & Mather, Y&R Advertising, and J. Walter Thompson. Foote Cone & Belding was chosen to create the advertising for DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza and later for Tombstone Rising Crust Pizza, an in-house competitor.

The company architect of the DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza phenomenon was Arthur Reingold, senior brand manager for DiGiorno Rising Crust from early 1994 to 1996. From formulation of the original idea to machinery to marketing, Reingold led a team that in effect let loose a frozen pizza revolution in 1996. When Reingold was assigned to the Kraft Pizza division in Glenview, Illinois, in 1994, he and his team began seriously discussing an idea that had been floating around for some time. The idea was the creation of a premium frozen pizza, a supermarket pie that could rival, and possibly beat, the offerings of a good pizzeria. This level of quality was considered an unattainable goal, but as Reingold discussed it with Frank Cole, who had been part of the General Foods (GF) organization in the 1980s—when GF had patented baking processes for other products to make them rise and bake up fresh in the oven—the idea took more concrete form. Cole retrieved the research, and Reingold and his team went to work on it. The result was the "rising crust" in DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza. Unlike conventional frozen pizzas, DiGiorno's crust was not precooked. It baked in the oven as it was prepared, rising and creating a fresh-baked bread aroma.

In addition to quality, convenience was a prime consideration in the development of DiGiorno Rising Crust. The pizza was designed to go into the oven without preheating so that consumers could do other things while the meal was baking.

TARGET MARKET

The "It's Not Delivery, It's DiGiorno" campaign targeted an audience of adults aged 25 to 54. The tighter focus was on adults 44 and younger with incomes of $40,000 and above who were medium to heavy users of carry-out pizza parlors such as Pizza Hut.

FIRST CHEESE

The cheese covering DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza is not just any cheese—it is one of a long line of "firsts" Kraft has developed over the decades. Kraft cheese was the first to appear in many different forms and packages, some of which dramatically changed the way cheese was marketed and used by customers. Kraft processed cheese, developed in 1915 and patented in 1916 after many years of experimentation, was among the first and most successful of its kind. The new cheese had an extended shelf life and uniform flavor and was sold in convenient packaging. Kraft was also the first to sell processed cheese in individually wrapped slices (and later shredded or as strings); before that, cheese had been sliced by the retailer, so consumers could not know for sure which brand they were buying. It also had a short shelf life, quickly drying out or becoming moldy. Another first for Kraft was the development of nonfat cheese.

COMPETITION

Supermarket frozen pizza was a hot sales category in 1997, growing by double digits in that year at least in part due to the extraordinary success of DiGiorno Rising Crust. That success notwithstanding, DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza still faced stiff competition on two fronts: among purveyors of fresh pizza and in supermarket freezers. DiGiorno Rising Crust had been created to go up against fresh take-out pizza, such as that sold by Pizza Hut, Papa John's, and others, and those remained its primary competitors. In the supermarket pizza category, a major new competitor to DiGiorno Rising Crust was Freschetta frozen pizza.

Although DiGiorno's place at the top of the list of rising crust frozen pizzas remained secure throughout 1997, Freschetta's $56 million in sales during its first year landed it the number 10 spot on the 1997 "Top 10 New Product Pacesetters" list drawn up annually by Information Resources, Inc., of Chicago. The makers of Freschetta, Schwan's Sales Enterprises of Minnesota, were newcomers to the rising-crust pizza market but long-time competitors of Kraft. Schwan's, which primarily marketed the Tony's and Red Baron brand pizzas, introduced Freschetta into four markets in October 1996 and had moved the product into about half of the country by May 1997. The Freschetta advertising campaign from Bozell Advertising, Minneapolis, included television spots, magazine ads, outdoor posters and billboards, coupons, and in-store sampling, Brand Manager Tom Bierbaum told Advertising Age. The name Freschetta, Bierbaum said, was created to suggest flavor "like the old country" and "to marry its authentic taste with freshness." Schwan's total budget for all pizza advertising was $7 million in 1996.

The overwhelming success of DiGiorno Rising Crust also spawned competition from within the company itself. Kraft competed with itself by marketing a similar entry into the frozen pizza market under the Tombstone brand name, which Kraft had acquired in 1986. During the research and development stage of DiGiorno Rising Crust, Kraft had at one point considered marketing the final product under the Tombstone name but instead decided on DiGiorno to help position it as a high-quality Italian meal. Retailing at a slightly lower price and planned specifically to go up against Freschetta, Tombstone Rising Crust likewise used ads from Foote Cone & Belding. The advertising plan included television spots, free-standing inserts, and sampling, with consumer promotions handled by Davidson Marketing. Television spots showed the Tombstone character in a variety of precarious situations, including sinking in quicksand and ready for hanging at the gallows. When asked what he wanted on his tombstone, he answered, "A crust that rises."

In April 1997 Tombstone was sold in about 80 percent of the country. Kraft also owns a third entry in the supermarket pizza category, Jack's, which is sold mainly in the Midwest and the South and did not seriously threaten DiGiorno's lead.

According to Information Resources, Kraft, including Jack's brand, held the largest share of the frozen pizza market in 1997, with 35 percent, while Schwan's, the makers of Freschetta, had a market share of 23.7 percent.

MARKETING STRATEGY

Reingold and his team took the finished product to focus groups, who were highly enthusiastic—in fact, their reaction, as Reingold recalled, was "wow." Bearing the pizza in one hand and stacks of glowing consumer group reports in the other, Reingold approached top management for funding for development of the rather complicated machinery that would be needed for mass production of the rising crust pizza. The product was introduced to a test market in about 6 percent of the country in 1995. In a departure from normal test market procedure, Reingold began tracking sales on a weekly basis and setting weekly goals. The product was an instant hit; by October of that year, distribution had doubled. In fact, demand was so much higher than expected that Reingold and other Kraft officials were initially unsure how much to produce. "How high was high?" Reingold wondered. "We didn't want to commit to markets we couldn't service."

The advertising agency Foote Cone & Belding had been brought into the project at the focus group stage. FCB developed television and print/outdoor advertising with the tag line "It's Not Delivery, It's DiGiorno," which featured consumers trying the product—at a party, for example—and finding it so good that they assumed it was pizzeria pizza. Because the test market had shown that sampling would be crucial to DiGiorno's success (Advertising Age reported that about 25 percent of the total budget went to sampling rather than advertising), the direct sales force sent into stores for in-store sampling received extra training. The company also developed the DiGiorno Travelin' Pizzeria, an 18-foot truck that could distribute samples at events and in parking lots.

The rollout continued, and by 1996 DiGiorno was available in about 80 percent of the United States. The Travelin' Pizzeria reached 63 different markets, and in July 1997 the "DiGiorno Hot Air Balloon Tour" was added to the list of marketing strategies. The enormous balloon was adorned with a huge "pizza" ("a larger than life crust that literally rises," as the company described it). It made stops across the country, offering balloon rides to members of the media as well as to consumers.

Kraft supported the DiGiorno introduction with an $11 million budget, a little more than the $9 million it allocated to its in-house rival Tombstone. Television advertising took place in selected markets around the country during 1996 and the first three quarters of 1997. In the last quarter of 1997, television spots were shown on national networks. Print advertising, which carried into 1998, was focused on general interest and entertainment publications, and included Entertainment Weekly, Style, People, TV Guide, Rolling Stone, and ESPN Magazine. Men were specifically targeted with ads in Esquire and GQ, and gourmet cooks with ads in Bon Appetit.

The campaign was expanded in 1999 to support the introduction of several new flavor varieties of the popular pizza brand. According to a report in Frozen Food Age, soft drinks are the top beverage consumed with pizza, and tapping into the information Kraft launched a joint venture with its DiGiorno brand and Coca Cola that included in-store displays and other merchandising.

In 2000, a new series of television spots were added to the campaign to support the launch of DiGiorno's Half & Half Rising Crust pizzas. One spot was based on a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, Psycho, and included the familiar tagline, "It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno."

A new spin was put on the "It's Not Delivery, It's DiGiorno" campaign in 2001 when Kraft launched a new promotion, "Be a DiGiorno Delivery Guy," with the prize for one winner, who would not deliver pizza, was $100,000 cash and a new Chrysler PT Cruiser. A television spot supporting the promotion showed a "slacker" visiting an unemployment office responding to a job offer on a DiGiorno pizza box. The woman working behind the counter said that DiGiorno is not delivery pizza. Print ads appeared in People magazine and an insert was included in newspapers. The promotion and campaign was repeated in 2002.

The tagline got a twist in a 2003 television spot that featured ESPN and ABC announcers for the National College Athletic Association, Bill Rafferty and Dick Vitale. During the spot the usually verbose Vitale was quiet as he enjoyed a slice of DiGiorno pizza. Rafferty thanked the pizza delivery guy for finding the secret to keeping Vitale quiet, but Vitale had the last word when he reminded Rafferty, "It's not deliver. It's DiGiorno, baby."

OUTCOME

The marketing campaign for DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza was by all measures a resounding success. The level of sales and the results of the sales analysis were both very satisfying to the company. While Reingold and the others admitted to some spillover from buyers of the Kraft Tombstone and Jack's frozen pizzas, the greater part of sales came from increased frozen pizza usage. Food and Beverage Marketing reported that roughly half of DiGiorno volume was new to the category and that both category spending and household penetration had grown at a much higher rate in DiGiorno markets than in non-DiGiorno markets. Moreover, qualitative research indicated that many consumers were replacing some of their spending at pizza parlors with DiGiorno. Repeat purchase levels exceeded 50 percent, the second highest repeat levels in the history of Kraft foods.

Food and Beverage Marketing also described surveys that noted that a strong brand relationship had been established with consumers. The impact of the product, and the impact of the ongoing marketing campaign, was such that DiGiorno was able to establish brand equity in its first year in the nation's supermarket freezers. DiGiorno also received accolades from Consumer Reports, which declared in its January 1997 issue that DiGiorno Rising Crust "tastes almost as good as pizza-chain pizza and costs less."

The 2001 and 2002 "Be the DiGiorno Delivery Guy" promotions were a notable success. Andrea Brown, the brand's director of consumer promotion told Promo magazine, that the contest was run two years because "it resonated so well with consumers, retailers, and the sales force that it was a must to repeat." In 2002, Promo named DiGiorno Rising Crust pizzas as one of the year's Best Promoted Brands, due to the success of the ongoing "It's Not Delivery, It's DiGiorno" campaign. The "It's Not Delivery, It's DiGiorno" campaign was updated and enhanced each year as new products in Kraft's rising crust pizza line were added. In 2003, the campaign was recognized by Frozen Food Age for Excellence in Marketing. Some 10 years after the campaign's 1996 launch, it and the iconic tagline were still reminding consumers, "It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno."