Me vs. the three of y’all and I’m still matching the energy/No wonder, I’m the only one here that’s ‘[w]rapped’ individually. 🎤

That’s one of many clever rhymes in an animated rap battle taking place in a refrigerator between Kraft’s “Slim Single” and so-called higher-shelf cheeses Gouda, brie and sharp cheddar. The “Fancy Cheese Takedown” video is no walkover for Kraft Singles. All of the combatants get in some hard shots—“You’re lunch box food to me /Only bought if you shop frugally,” Gouda slurs; Cheddar calls Singles “the hot dog of cheeses”—with each diss drawing gasps from other denizens of the fridge, before things come to a messy conclusion.

The video, created by rapper and producer Illmac, has had nearly 6 million views since its Nov. 2 release. It is one example of how Kraft Singles has moved to embrace pop culture—particularly hip-hop culture—in support of the “Square It” brand platform launched last year by agency Johannes Leonardo.

Below, Kelsey Rice, senior brand manager for Kraft Singles at Kraft Heinz, discusses why “Square It” touts the cheese for its versatility—and is aimed at active millennials, not lunchbox-packing moms. The interview was lightly edited for style and clarity.

Where is Kraft Singles now vs. where you’d like it to be?

We are doing well. One of the reasons we believe this is the case is our campaign which we developed in 2021 alongside our creative agency Johannes Leonardo that was all about how we reignite America’s love affair with cheese. We had gotten new interest during COVID, and we know there are lots of American cheese Kraft Singles lovers out there. We launched the campaign called “Square It,” which effectively focuses on how versatile and wonderful the product is, and launched that in traditional media.

We’ve really been focused on engagement and creating relevance by showing up in unexpected ways. This year we launched our own Singles single with Kelis. It was really unexpected. We know this customer loves music, especially hip hop. That was our first foray and it went really well. We’ve claimed the music space in particular. Another example of that was this year we shook up the VMAs, which is a huge moment in culture. We not only had a huge presence at that show but we also created custom content with MTV so that we could authentically show up during that show in a way that did not leave question marks as to why Kraft Singles was at the VMAs.

Illmac has a YouTube channel that’s filled with cartoon rap battles. Did you engage him to actually write the piece?

We did. We’ve been hands off the wheel—we said, “Here is the tone of the voice, here are the reasons we know we’re an amazingly melty, iconic cheese. Help us demonstrate that while engaging your audience.”

The creative team at JL found what Illmac had created. [Illmac] had done ketchup vs. mustard in a fridge, and it had amazing engagement and reviews. It was awesome. So, we were like, let’s just approach them and see if they’ll work with us. We told the story about why we want to work with him and why we believe we're totally brazen and the best, and he said yes.

All of the lyrics were created by him and his team, all the animation was done in-house by his studio—they are incredibly talented. They were a true collaborative partner and as I said earlier, we were hands off the wheel. As a brand manager, you want to have a lot of control over creativity but for this one, we intentionally did not take that path. We had the upfront brief, and throughout the process we were with him as he wrote the lyrics, and he really knocked it out of the park.

Did it bring you any pause when your product is threatening violence on three kinds of cheese?

We had a lot of internal conversation and internal showings of the work and there’s always the challenge of, “They’re taking some digs at our product: Are we sure we’re okay with this? Is he really winning?”And we went back to the reality, which is, we need to do this authentically and it’s not supposed to be obvious that this person won. It should truly be a match, and we want those truths that are real. People have these misconceptions that these other cheeses are better for reasons that are mentioned in the rap. I loved that we were leaning into those disses and digs on other products and saying, let’s let this play out in an authentic way so we can focus on the creativity that comes through.

Do you see any benefits from this movement that you can quantify?

Yes, we’ve seen over 6 million views of the various forms of the creative battle, 2 million were done organically before we put paid against any of the assets, so it had already taken off, which is amazing. What’s more, within the first 24 hours it went live, we saw some social conversations literally mentioning Kraft Singles than we did in any month in the entire year of 2022. I’m thrilled with how it came off. My favorite thing is looking at the comments. If you scroll through it, you can see people quoting their favorite bars. It feels really authentic, and that people are acknowledging that the product is awesome without us having to force that.

What is ahead for Square It?

We believe the music space, particularly hip-hop and rap, is resonating with consumers so we’re hoping to expand it.