• Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, February 28, 2007 11:31 AM

Kraft Foods is turning a vacant museum on Chicago's North Michigan Avenue into a pizza parlor for three days to generate buzz about its new DiGiorno Ultimate frozen pizza. The pizzaria will be open from March 9-11, as part of an effort to convince consumers that the frozen fare tastes as fresh as home-delivered. The publicity generated by the stunt "gives the product introduction a sense of bigness," says John Boswell, senior vice president and general manager for Kraft's pizza unit.

Consumer-products companies are catching on to the "pop-up store" concept after the retail industry tried them first. Proponents say it is a relatively inexpensive way to gain attention in an age when consumers are bombard by media messages.

Kraft follows on the heels of Lexus, which turned the same space into an art gallery in January for a month to show off its newest sedan. Before that, Motorola put a cell phone store there for six months. It was the first foray into traditional storefront retail for both manufacturers.

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