Challenges and goals:

Heinz is the world’s most beloved ketchup. It’s a thick, rich sauce unlike any other, which is why every ketchup fan knows, “It Has to be Heinz.”

Heinz has enormous reach and ubiquity, but there’s a minority of restaurants out there that don’t serve it. Some places serve inferior, off-brand ketchup. Others refuse to serve the red sauce altogether. So we set out to make Heinz available at these vehemently anti-Heinz places.

Our objective was to ignite a conversation that proved to these restaurants that despite what they may believe – their customers want Heinz. 

Insights and strategy:

Our target for this campaign was irrational Heinz ketchup fans. We found that nearly four out of five people (88%) prefer Heinz ketchup when eating out, but a lot of restaurants still won’t serve it. Some places serve off-brand ketchup and pretend it’s Heinz, others have banned the red condiment altogether. These restaurants had always been a no-fly zone for the Heinz brand. We couldn’t get our product into these restaurants – so we put it outside of them. Our strategy and approach was simple: target the moments and locations where fans are most desperate for Heinz. 

Execution:

We started by bringing our smackable, Heinz-dispensing board to Toronto and then moved it to the city most notorious for its anti-ketchup stance: Chicago. Chicago restaurants firmly believe that Heinz doesn’t belong on hot dogs, so naturally, we placed our board outside of famous Chicago hot dog spots.

We then invited people to tell us where they weren't getting Heinz and datamined customer complaints about missing ketchup on platforms like YELP. We found restaurants with super strict anti-ketchup policies, like Louis Lunch in Connecticut, the home of the burger. Every time we learned of a new Heinzless location, we placed a Heinz board in front of it.

But there was one name we kept hearing over and over again: McDonalds. After they stopped serving Heinz for 10 years, everyone wanted these beloved brands to come back together. So naturally, we placed our Heinz-dispensing billboard right in front of several McDonalds locations. 

To scale our campaign further, we launched a digital experience allowing people to smack their phones for Heinz. We scaled nationally with additional digital boards, targeting more places that didn’t serve Heinz. 

Results & impact:

With the launch of Smack for Heinz, we got Heinz in restaurants that had always been a no-fly zone for the brand. We broke the rules by bringing Heinz to restaurants across Chicago, where sales had fallen 20% below the national average due to their strict ketchup norms. Grammy-nominated DJ Marshmello even performed above our board in Chicago, attracting a crowd of thousands. We went across North America, targeting 180 restaurants, including Louis Lunch, the birthplace of the hamburger which famously bans ketchup and Bear Steak Sandwiches in Toronto, known for its no ketchup rule. Our mobile website recorded 31K visits, where people could smack their phones for Heinz.

Though we’d ruffled some feathers, our launch video performed 157% above social benchmarks and garnered a 99% positive sentiment. We’d created an explosive national conversation, with pick up by major outlets like USA Today, The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert, Fox & more. In a few short weeks, we’ve already earned 500M impressions.