Cheese Slices, Philadelphia Cream Cheese

A leader in the world of cheese, Kraft shows how to take an existing product and rework it a thousand ways to create new products.

Building on its basic cheese formula, Kraft was the first to offer commercially packaged cheese slices in 1965. Philadelphia cream cheese now comes with pineapple, strawberries, or salmon already mixed in; Kraft sells over $1 billion annually in cream cheese alone. It put cheese in a spray can, called it Cheez Whiz (reaching a whole group of customers just dying to eat cheese from a can), and forever changed hors d’oeuvres at Middle America’s dinner parties. It took fat out of Velveeta (Velveeta Lite), for calorie conscious consumers in search of smaller waistlines, and put in jalape?os, for those wanting a little zing in their cheese loaf. Constantly innovating, Kraft now has bragging rights to a portfolio of 200 forms of cheese products-even Elton John doesn’t have that many versions of “Candles in the Wind.” Create an Authentic Brand; Choose an Accepted Conduit Mooove over Elsie, there’s a new cow in town-and she’s purple.

Kraft added Milka, one of Europe’s leading brands of chocolate, to its vast array of brands sold in the United States. Founded by Phillippe Suchard in the mid 1800s in Neuch?tel, Switzerland, Milka transformed chocolate from a product available only to Europe’s elite to a treat that could be enjoyed, and afforded, by all. Packaged in a lilac wrapper decorated with cows in a pasture, the brand is recognized around the world and reigns supreme throughout Europe as one of the most tender chocolates available. Through extensive advertising, Milka developed the personality of the lilac cow to the extent that when German schoolchildren are asked to draw a farm scene, they often color the cows purple.