The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. is joining Kraft Foods in its annual promotion that revolves around the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The two partners will combine forces to build awareness of The Hartford’s Smart529 college savings plan through the joint Taste the Madness promotion.
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Kraft chose to partner with The Hartford because both are NCAA sponsors and because it wanted to help The Hartford spread the word about college savings plans, said Kraft Foods spokesman Larry Baumann.
Recipes from Kraft and college savings tips from The Hartford will be available at 30,000 Taste the Madness retail displays nationwide. A college savings calculator from The Hartford will also appear on
Kraftfoods.com, so families can estimate future potential college costs for their children. The tournament runs April 1-4 in St. Louis, MO.
Mary Jane Fortin, a senior VP with the Hartford, said in a statement that the company was looking for a non-traditional way to build awareness for college savings and its Smart529 plan offering.
“This was a chance to move outside the traditional marketing and promotions mode for financial services companies,” Fortin said.
Smart529 is a program of the West Virginia College Prepaid Tuition and Savings Board of Trustees and is administered by The Hartford.
Also as part of Taste the Madness, a sweepstakes will award 31 people with $10,000 toward a future college education in the 2005 Kraft & DiGiorno Scholarship Promotion, which is being rolled out through displays at grocery stores and mass merchants nationwide and on Kraftfoods.com. Consumers can enter via mail or at kraftfoods.com before April 28.
Kraft is also running an instant-win game at kraftfoods.com through March 20. The Planters Famously Fresh Shot will award a grand-prize winner a trip for two to both New York and the NCAA Final Four.
EastWest Creative, New York City, handles the promotion. EastWest Creative’s work on Kraft Foods’ 2003 Munch Madness! campaign won the 2004 EMMA in the Sports Entertainment category.
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