I keep seeing stories on Twitter that are impossible to tell apart from parody accounts like The Onion,NY Times Pitchbot and Reductress. The 11m gold cube in Central Park with its own security detail skirted that line between reality and parody. When the eight foot Velveeta box replaced it, I got really confused. Although the giant gold cube was probably a viral lead-in to this Velveeta Box, it was promoting its own sh-t, something less valuable and versatile than Velveeta. The foot and a half solid gold cube, made by German artist Niclas Castello, was promoting Castello’s branded cryptocurrency, called the Castello Coin. The Velveeta Box is obviously an advertisement for this “liquid gold” cheese which can be eaten with nachos, macaroni, soups and various casseroles. I’m going to quote AdAge here because they have a good brief writeup.
Yesterday, a pure-gold cube worth $11.7 million made headlines when it mysteriously appeared in New York City’s Central Park accompanied by its own security detail. Today, a different block of gold replaced it—a cheesier rendition.
Inspired by German artist Niclas Castello’s golden art piece, Velveeta dropped an eight-foot box of cheese in the exact same spot, the Naumburg Bandshell. The box is 1400 times larger than a typical supermarket box of the cheese product. It’s also protected by security guards.
The activation is inspired by Velveeta’s tagline “liquid gold” and pays homage to the brand’s recent revamp, which aimed to elevate the product as a symbol for luxurious, indulgent lifestyles. In a mystery of its own, the eight-foot box in Central Park nixed the new packaging for the previous version.
So did Kraft commission that art piece? That’s the logical conclusion. There’s also the possibility that they just acted quickly to capitalize on the gold cube hype, but if that was the case how did they know when the cube would be removed? I wonder if Kraft will do a tie-in to a SuperBowl commercial. They now have an all-caps “missing: Velveeta Box” announcement with a sweepstakes for a year’s supply of Velveeta and an email address. Are they going to move the thing around the country and reward the first person who finds it in each location? This was a pretty smart promotional stunt. They’ll get coverage again when this box turns up at the next place. Now I’m hungry for mac and cheese.
They recently gave away a locker of queso.
Not gonna lie, I originally thought the gold cube and giant Velveeta box were part of the same installation piece functioning as an incisive commentary on the rising costs of food due to inflation, supply chain issues and climate crises.
A “let them eat cake” take if you will.
And honestly, I like my head cannon better and choose to keep it.
+1
Since there is clearly boatloads of money in marketing, I sure hope whoever is taking over a portion of NYC parks is paying the parks department for the privilege. Further I hope any money raised goes to good use maintaining a park in a less affluent neighborhood.
Unfortunately it’s definitely not happening. If anything the parks folks and community board members have been selling air rights of Bronx community parks to developers. They even started locking up community parks when organizers were using the space to grow produce and do food distributions. The whole system is in bed with developers.
Such clever advertising for…fake money and fake cheese.
Velveeta as a luxury food? It’s barely a food product. There is no reality.
Yes, cheese that is manufactured with no need to refrigerate it is quite disgusting.
I would prefer the pure gold cube to be re-installed as it was much more lovely to look at. Velveeta, not so much.
When I first saw the image I thought it was an artist making a commentary on how cheesy the gold cube was.
I had an obsession with Velveeta when I was a kid, lol
So this is making me nostalgic, and I want to eat some!
I have yet to find anywhere in Toronto that sells it, though, which sucks 🙁