2022 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

After the successful launch of Mayochup and Mayoracha in 2018 and 2019, Heinz needed a fresh approach to launch a new line of flavour mashups that would drive sales and conversation with consumers. Asking consumers for their flavour suggestions had been done before and wasn’t unique to Heinz. They also knew product development would take between 8-10 months, causing a gap in communications. The Internet has a record of every single thing you’ve searched, shared or posted - often, these posts come back to haunt us - but what if your old post resulted in something positive for once?

Instead of asking their core target of Canadian families what the next mashup sauce from Heinz should be, they realized the answer was already out there, so they launched a line of sauces inspired by existing consumer posts found on social media. After reviewing hundreds of options from wedding dress forums to fishing groups to subreddits about pizza, they selected their top 3 flavours - Tarchup, Hanch, and Wasabioli - and brought them to life. They launched the campaign on social media by sharing the origin story of each sauce and its creator, including their original post. This was followed by their hero launch video, explaining how Heinz dug across the Internet to find consumers' old posts and turned them into sauces. The campaign was extended onto YouTube with Google’s Director’s Mix tool, which allowed them to target hundreds of specific audiences with custom ads for each of their 3 sauces and leaned into the “creepy” nature of the campaign.

In March 2021, the sauces hit shelves for consumers to try. To wrap up, they asked people online what foods they would pair Heinz’s new sauces with. They took those crowdsourced answers and created polls on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram so people could vote on their favourite to generate further engagement. Since launching, the CrowdSauced sauces have sold $820,000 worth of product and accounted for 1% market share of the total Viscous category. Sales for the new CrowdSauced sauces were 46% higher than Mayoracha, the previous sauce mashup. Additionally, sales surpassed the internal Kraft Heinz forecast by 20% and counting. Overall, the campaign generated 617,634,059 earned impressions and $26,109,609 USD in earned publicity.

The planning and strategy of the campaign directly influenced how the brand thinks of their R&D process. Lead times for limited-time offers don’t typically allow for consumers to play a role early on in the process. Instead, they bring them in once the product is developed for testing. Their strategy utilized consumer interest through social listening before production began to offset the 8-10 month timeline. Which gave consumers a voice without having to ask. While also allowing them to avoid the typical R&D phase, giving us a seamless transition from launch to in-market. A new limited-time offer process and simple social listening created so much demand that Heinz had to complete a second run of production, which was not originally in plan.

Credits

Client: Kraft Heinz
Agency: Rethink
CCO: Aaron Starkman
CSO: Sean McDonald
ECD: Mike Dubrick
Art Director: Dorota Pankowska, Patrick Shing
Writer: Justin Santelli, Naeem Ghafari
Broadcast Producer: Spencer Houghton
Lead Strategist: Julian Morgan
Production Company: Undivided Creative
Photographer: Joe Bulawan
Photography Producer: Scott Houghton
Animation Studio: Polyester Studios
Production House Producer: Robyn Smale, Alyssa Molfetta
Lead Animator: Jeremy Dimmock
Post Production House: R+D Productions
Editor: Tyler Erdelac
Post Production Producer: Todd Harrison
Audio House: Grayson Matthews
Audio Director: Chris Cobain
Audio Engineer: Chris Masson
Audio Producer: Nicholas Shaw
Account Services: Amy Greenspoon, Kai De Bruyn Kops, Allie Kennedy