Off-Color Wordplay From Kraft, Part of a Big Marketing Blitz THE Kraft Foods Group is continuing a major marketing blitz with an initiative for a new product line - budgeted at more than $30 million in the first year - that seeks to tap into the current mania with all things chef. The new line of nine meal-starters, called Kraft Recipe Makers, is being introduced with a campaign that features two celebrity chefs, Rocco DiSpirito and Carla Hall, presented in commercials as if they were a smart-aleck brother and sister critiquing their parents" ability to come up with new and different dinner menus. In keeping with efforts by Kraft Foods to reach younger consumers, the campaign also will run in a full range of nontraditional media that includes digital ads and a presence in social media like Twitter. In another sign of how eager Kraft Foods is to update its marketing tactics, the campaign takes a cheeky tack as embodied by some mildly naughty wordplay in the theme of the ads, "Get your chef together," which doubles as the address of a microsite, or special Web site, devoted to the new line. "We're just trying to be contemporary and evolve with our consumers," said Ann Stockman, brand manager for Recipe Makers at Kraft Foods in Northfield, Ill., "and talk in a way that resonates with them." "We were not targeting it to be a play off a vulgar word," she added. Consumers will take it in the spirit it's intended. Patrick O'Neill, executive creative director at the Los Angeles office of Being, the creative agency of Kraft Recipe Makers, said of the theme: "It's kind of a call to action, and fun to say. And let's face it, food's fun. Ads for food shouldn't have to be so functional. Being Los Angeles, part of the TBWA Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group, also creates saucy ads for another Kraft Foods brand, Kraft Zesty Italian dressing. Those ads present a sexy spokesman nicknamed the Zesty Guy, who likes to pitch the product shirtless and, sometimes, pantsless, clad only in a chef's apron or picnic blanket. The Kraft campaigns are indicative of how ads from mainstream marketers are loosening up - or becoming crass and crude, depending on your perspective - to reflect changing societal mores, particularly when it comes to younger shoppers. Other recent examples include ads for Slim-Fast diet products sold by Unilever, which depict women thinking, "I want to show off my new ass," and commercials for the Kmart division of Sears Holdings in which shoppers utter provocative-sounding phrases like "Ship my pants" and "Big gas savings." The popularity of the Kmart commercials - the one about pants, for instance, has had more than 19.3 million views on YouTube - may be a reason the Kmart creative agency, Draftfcb, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, was able to keep the account in a recent review. Some in advertising, however, question the approach. "What are you telling consumers, you're a potty-mouth brand?" asked Anthony Sperduti, who founded, with Andy Spade, the Partners & Spade agency in New York. "If your only goal is to raise awareness" or generate ideas that "a 25-year-old passes around" in social media like YouTube, Mr. Sperduti said, such tactics could be effective in the short term. "But where is the long-term?" he added. (Mr. Sperduti is no prude. A new line of sleepwear and underwear that he and Mr. Spade plan to bring out under the Sleepy Joe's brand name includes a T-shirt that is to bear a slogan that, to paraphrase its message by omitting a four-letter word, will declare, "Fie on tech.") In addition to Kraft Recipe Makers, Kraft Foods recently introduced another meal-starter product line, Kraft Fresh Take, and is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns meant to freshen the appeal of venerable brands that in addition to Kraft Zesty Italian include A.1. steak sauce, Jell-O, Miracle Whip, Oscar Mayer bacon, Oscar Mayer hot dogs, Stove Top, Temp Tee and Velveeta. The sheer volume of what Kraft Foods is trying to accomplish can be glimpsed in media outlets like Food Network Magazine; the September issue carries ads for 10 Kraft Foods brands. Makers of packaged foods like Kraft Foods are working harder at marketing because the last five years have been a propitious time for them as budget-minded consumers cut down on dining out in favor of eating at home. The trade-off is that "consumers everywhere struggle every night with the question, "What's for dinner?" " Ms. Stockman said. "There are a lot of nights when they're time-pressed, and can't do everything from scratch," she added, yet still want "to put a fresh meal on the table." Enter Kraft Recipe Makers, sauces to which users add ingredients like beef, chicken or fish. That is explained in the commercials with Mr. DiSpirito and Ms. Hall, which depict them as a tough audience for Mom and Dad to please at dinnertime. In one spot, after the father tells his children to turn off the TV set and come to the table, Mr. DiSpirito says, "You've got one commercial break to impress me." Ms. Hall looks at dinner and declares: "Three-cheese chicken Florentine? Ambitious for a Thursday. Moments later, they are impressed. "I am loving the layers of flavor," Mr. DiSpirito says. Ms. Hall interjects, "I am getting some Parmesan notes." Mr. DiSpirito, approvingly, tells Dad, "Keep this up, you could have your own show, chef." The spot ends with an announcer's spiel: "Introducing Kraft Recipe Masters. Two complementary sauces with your fresh ingredients, so you can get your chef together.