2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Objectives & Challenges

Heinz Ketchup is an iconic brand that’s long been a staple in Canadian households. That said, it’s seen its fair share of challenges from new category entrants. As a result, the brand started to see brand affinity scores decline as competitors stole share. For the first time ever, Canadians were questioning whether Heinz was for them.
The objective was to re-ignite an emotional connection with Heinz in a culturally relevant way to bolster consumer loyalty. The team sought to stay top of mind by instigating chatter and reinforcing the brand’s iconic status as Canada’s #1 Ketchup.

Insights & Strategy

Throughout the world Heinz is considered to be a cultural icon. As such, the brand had the opportunity to assert itself in a way that no other condiment in the world could. The truth is, Heinz is Ketchup. When people think of ketchup, they picture the iconic Heinz bottle. The brand needed to find a way to prove this. To uncover this unspoken association it conducted an anonymous social experiment. Heinz asked a group of people to simply “Draw Ketchup” – it had a strong feeling that most of them would draw Heinz.

Execution

The experiment was conducted with participants in person and on zoom, across five continents. None of whom knew the experiment was associated with the brand. They were simply told to “draw ketchup,” and given 15 minutes to do so.
The result? Turns out the brand was right. When people think ketchup, they think Heinz.
Most drew a bright red bottle with “Heinz” from memory. Others opted to draw details like a Heinz keystone label, a Heinz label style tomato hanging from a vine, or the Heinz number 57 on the neck of a glass bottle. The quality of the drawings ranged from messy doodles to finely-rendered illustrations, but the vast majority had something in common: when they drew ketchup, they drew Heinz.
The team filmed the experiment and packaged it up as a video. This ran this across social media and invited Canadians to ‘draw ketchup’ themselves for a chance to see their artwork come to life on the iconic Heinz Ketchup bottle. All they had to do was visit DrawKetchup.ca to submit their artwork.
The top 500 drawings were selected to win a custom box and bottle with their drawing on the label. The brand turned the drawings into a global campaign: 25 consumer Ketchup drawings featured on our global out of home boards, showcasing to the public that It has to be Heinz. From there it created a 30 second cutdown and extended it to TV for the Superbowl.

Results

The Canadian campaign was such a success that it was extended to the UK, Ireland, Greece, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Brazil. With only $45,000 in production, the campaign generated over $5.8 million in earned publicity and 83% positive media sentiment. Additionally the social engagement rate was 1495% above average. The attention paid off as sales were 7.26% above year prior.

Credits

CCO: Aaron Starkman
Executive Creative Director: Mike Dubrick
Creative Director, Head of Art: Joel Holtby
Associate Creative Director: Zachary Bautista
Art Director: Zachary Bautista
Writer: Geoff Baillie
Designer: Jaclyn McConnell
Strategist: Sean McDonald, Julian Morgan
Producer: Alex Butt
Production Coordinator: Spencer Houghton
Print Producer: Narine Artinian
Production Co.: R+D Productions
Director: Agency
DoP: AA Scott McClellan
Editor: Stephen Parker
Color / Online: Emmett Maloney
Group Account Director: Amy Greenspoon
Account Director: Kai de Bruyn Kops
Account Manager: Allie Kennedy
Audio House: Vapor Music
Audio Engineer: Art Mullin
PR Agency: The Colony Project
Media Agency: CARAT
Community Management: SALT