ADC Awards
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Category
Out of Home / Print / Electronic Billboard - Single
Annual ID
ADC104_ADV059B
Background
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 are restaurants out there that refuse to serve it. And in 2024, New York City went even further, banning ketchup packets entirely—leading to a 6pt drop in Heinz market share. To make up for this loss, we set out to spark a cultural conversation that showed restaurants across North America just how much their customers love Heinz, ultimately helping us win more away-from-home business.
Heinz has enormous reach and ubiquity, but there are restaurants out there that refuse to serve it. And in 2024, New York City went even further, banning ketchup packets entirely—leading to a 6pt drop in Heinz market share. To make up for this loss, we set out to spark a cultural conversation that showed restaurants across North America just how much their customers love Heinz, ultimately helping us win more away-from-home business.
Creative Idea
Introducing Smack for Heinz: a campaign aimed at restaurants that refuse to serve Heinz Ketchup. We leveraged the universal symbol of world's love for Heinz – the bottle smack – and turned it into a means of helping people take out their frustration while getting hands on their favorite ketchup.
We couldn’t get our product into these restaurants – so we put it outside of them. We started by creating a smackable, Heinz-dispensing billboard that we could place outside restaurants that refused to serve Heinz ketchup. To find these locations, we used social listening and datamined customer reviews on platforms like Yelp. Every time a customer complained about a restaurant not serving Heinz, we found a spot to bring the board.
We couldn’t get our product into these restaurants – so we put it outside of them. We started by creating a smackable, Heinz-dispensing billboard that we could place outside restaurants that refused to serve Heinz ketchup. To find these locations, we used social listening and datamined customer reviews on platforms like Yelp. Every time a customer complained about a restaurant not serving Heinz, we found a spot to bring the board.
Insights & Strategy
As we dug into the challenge, we found that nearly four out of five people (88%) want 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.
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 the city most notorious for their 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 went international in major locations such as Toronto and Connecticut, inviting people to tell us where they weren't getting Heinz and data mining customer complaints about missing ketchup on platforms like Yelp. We then targeted these locations with our smackable board, along with other digital versions of the board. We also created a mobile app that invited people everywhere to smack their phones to get Heinz.
Confidential Information:
We even placed our Heinz-dispensing billboard right in front of several McDonald's locations, in response to overwhelming demand for a reunion between the two beloved brands.
We then went international in major locations such as Toronto and Connecticut, inviting people to tell us where they weren't getting Heinz and data mining customer complaints about missing ketchup on platforms like Yelp. We then targeted these locations with our smackable board, along with other digital versions of the board. We also created a mobile app that invited people everywhere to smack their phones to get Heinz.
Confidential Information:
We even placed our Heinz-dispensing billboard right in front of several McDonald's locations, in response to overwhelming demand for a reunion between the two beloved brands.
Results
Our smackable billboard proved to restaurants across America that their customers want Heinz. With the launch of the campaign, 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. When we went international, we targeted 180 restaurants, including Louis Lunch, the birthplace of the hamburger who famously bans ketchup. Our mobile website recorded 24K visits, where people could smack their phones for Heinz Ketchup coupons.
Post campaign, Heinz even signed major restaurant brands like Denny’s and Bojangles – leading to $8.4M in new away from home business.
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 international conversation, with pickup by major outlets like USA Today, The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert, Fox & more. In total, the campaign garnered 366,522,733 earned impressions, proving to restaurant owners everywhere that despite what they believe, for their customers, It Has to Be Heinz.
Post campaign, Heinz even signed major restaurant brands like Denny’s and Bojangles – leading to $8.4M in new away from home business.
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 international conversation, with pickup by major outlets like USA Today, The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert, Fox & more. In total, the campaign garnered 366,522,733 earned impressions, proving to restaurant owners everywhere that despite what they believe, for their customers, It Has to Be Heinz.
2025 Awards
Total Points: 9
Bronze Cube
Credits
Agency
Rethink / Toronto
Media Agency
Carat / Chicago
PR / Marketing Agency
Zeno Group / Chicago
Client
Jacqueline Chao
Megan Lang
Navjit Dhillon
Nina Patel
Lizzy Goodman
Client / Brand
Kraft Heinz
Production Company
MT Vernon Entertainment
Fuze Reps / Toronto
Art Director
Zachary Bautista
Jaclyn McConnell
Chief Creative Officer
Mike Dubrick
Chief Strategy Officer
Sean McDonald
Copywriter
Geoff Baillie
Creative Director
Zachary Bautista
Geoff Baillie
Editor
Leigh O'Neill
Thais Maranho
Executive Creative Director
Xavier Blais
Global Chief Creative Officer
Aaron Starkman
Photographer
Adrian Armstrong
Producer
Terri Winter
Tricia Lapidario
Strategist
Emma Bayfield
Executive Producer
Ken Franchi
Head of Strategy
Julian Morgan
Account Director
David Greisman
Lindsay Magrane
Account Manager
Bhumika Baweja
Account Supervisor
Rachel Cloth
Account Supervisor Media
Veronica Smith
Associate Director of Digital Production
Kyle Hicks
Associate Director, Planning
Nicole Tarazona
Audio Engineer
Aaron McCourt
James Findlay
Colourist
Hardave Grewal
Digital Designer
Alex Fleming
Director of Broadcast Production
Shelby Spigelman
Director of Integrated Content
AJ Merrick
Todd Harrison
EVP Media
Courtney Pischke
EVP, Head of Integrated Communications
Missy Maher
Fabrication Company
wonderMakr
Group Account Director
Rob Dix
Group Business Lead
Adam Ball
Line Producer
Ken Franchi
Online/Motion Graphics
Hardave Grewal
Post Supervisor
Shannon Ing
Senior Account Supervisor
Bethany Roth
Senior Associate, Planning
Elizabeth Schuler
Senior Manager, Planning
Micahya Byrd
Studio Artist
Carl DeVouge
Kostas Loukopoulos
Studio Manager
Todd Bennett
Vice President
Alysa Winkler
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