2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Heinz is the world’s most beloved ketchup. It’s a thick, rich sauce unlike any other, which is why they’ve long said, “It Has to be Heinz.”

But as food prices increase and businesses look to cut costs, restaurants are shifting from Heinz to cheaper, lower-quality ketchup options. In tough times, restaurants often look to cheaper alternatives of lesser quality and
inferior taste than Heinz.

Their goal was to reinforce brand love for Heinz in order to show restaurants that while there are other ketchups, none can replace Heinz.

Even when times are tough, there’s one golden restaurant rule that trumps all logic: The customer is always right. And with 77% of people preferring Heinz when dining out, they didn’t need traditional B2B tactics — they just needed these fans.

When they dug into social listening, they uncovered a widespread pain point that connected every Heinz fan: going to a restaurant and finding a Heinz bottle filled with non-Heinz ketchup. Across social, they expressed their frustration and disappointment with this inferior ketchup swap. Instead of doing what brands typically do and shy away from this behaviour, they leaned into it and even
gave it a name: “Ketchup Fraud”.

They launched an integrated campaign that put “Ketchup Fraud” on display and set out to end it. The work featured caught-in-the-act style assets and a twist on their tagline: Even when it isn’t Heinz, It Has To Be Heinz. They started by bringing attention to it through social, DOOH, print and video assets. Placements included high-impact DOOH in both New York & Chicago, along with a New York Times full-page feature and placements in US Weekly, InTouch and Life & Style.

Once the word was out, they turned to social and launched a website asking fans to tell us which restaurants have been committing “Ketchup Fraud”. Because they didn’t just want to bring attention to “Ketchup Fraud” — they wanted to stop it. Restaurants could even submit themselves anonymously on the website. Once fans had named names, Heinz could reach out to those restaurants to help them start serving the real thing.

The immediate, passionate response to their campaign showed restaurants that their customers truly believe “It has to be Heinz.” and proved to restaurant owners that serving Heinz is worth it.

By tapping into an insight that resonated with Heinz fans, their campaign garnered over 438MM impressions, drove 92% positive sentiment, exceeded the social engagement rate benchmark by 128x, and brought to life hundreds of organic stories that confirmed first-hand experiences with “Ketchup Fraud”,
and the world’s love for the brand.

With the launch of this campaign, Heinz gained 33 new accounts in under a month, including re-signing Boston's iconic Fenway Park as well as several independent mom & pop-type restaurants, equalling a total of over $250k in gross sales volume (sales volume for Fenway Park will be available in 2024). In addition to gaining new accounts, Heinz increased sales by 8% vs the previous year and gained 0.6 points in market share vs. the previous year.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman, Mike Dubrick, Daniel Lobatón
Chief Strategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Executive Creative Director: Xavier Blais
Creative Director: Skye Deluz, Jacquelyn Parent, Fernando Hernandez
Writer : Jacquelyn Parent, Nicolas Dubois, Xavier Blais
Art Director : Skye Deluz, Hayley Hinkley
Strategist: Julian Morgan, Emma Bayfield, Clément Martin, Pascal Routhier
Producers: Tricia Lapidario, Kate A. Spencer
Post Supervisors: R+D Post, Megan O’Connor, Shannon Ing
Integrated Producer: Kate A. Spencer
Studio: Brad Kumar, Justin Chan, Kostas Loukopoulos
Group Business Lead: Adam Ball
Group Account Director: Jamie Sutherland
Account Director: David Greisman, Catherine Blouin-Mainville
Account Supervisor: Jamie Flatow
Account Manager: Rachel Cloth
Photographer: Ale Burset
Production Companies.: Wolf Credo Production Co
Executive Producer: Marcela Moracci
Line Producer: Mariano Legname García, Ariel Ticona Molina
Editor: R+D Post, Eugene Aglushevich
Online: Frame Distillery VFX, Rob Del Ciancio
Color: R+D Post, Emmett Maloney
Audio: Grayson Music
PR: Zeno Group
Media: Starcom

Client:
Head of Brand Comms North America: Nina Patel
Director, Brand Comms: Megan Lang
Sr. Brand Manager: Jacqueline Chao
Brand Manager: Alyssa Cicero