The challenges and goals

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

But as the global cost of living rises, everyone is feeling the pressures of inflation, meaning both businesses and consumers are cutting costs. In tough times restaurants often look to cheaper alternatives of lesser quality and taste than Heinz. 

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

The insights and strategy

Our campaign insight began with finding a real Snapchat video that showed a restaurant employee getting caught refilling a Heinz bottle with generic ketchup. As we dug deeper through social listening, we came to realize that this is an incredibly widespread restaurant behaviour. People everywhere can tell when it’s not real Heinz and continue to express their frustration and disappointment with this inferior ketchup swap. 

Our strategy was to subvert this common pain point to reaffirm our brand truth – It has to be Heinz. 

The execution

We launched Ketchup Fraud, an integrated campaign that called out restaurants refilling Heinz bottles with generic ketchup. It featured caught-in-the-act style assets and a twist on our tagline: Even when it isn’t Heinz, it has to be Heinz.

We started by bringing attention to Ketchup Fraud 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, we turned to social and launched a website asking fans to tell us which restaurants have been committing Ketchup Fraud. Because we didn’t just want to bring attention to Ketchup Fraud – we wanted to end it. Restaurants could even submit themselves anonymously on the website. We then began connecting with these restaurants and providing them with the real deal to make sure that when people see Heinz – it will actually be Heinz. 

The results and impact

By tapping into an insight that resonated with Heinz fans across the world, our 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 and anecdotes that confirmed first-hand experiences with Ketchup Fraud. 

With the launch of this campaign, Heinz gained 33 new accounts in under a month, including re-signing Boston's iconic Fenway ballpark 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, at a time when many were turning away from higher priced products.