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Category
Craft / Use of Technology
Annual ID
OS23_SM117M
About the Work
Heinz Ketchup is a cultural icon - it’s not just a ketchup, it is the ketchup. But its status as an establishment brand meant it was in danger of losing relevance with younger audiences. We were challenged to keep a 153-year-old brand fresh in the cultural conversation.
This summer, text-to-image AI generators took the Internet by storm. People were creating weird and wild images from written prompts like “Napoleon riding a Harley Davidson”, or “R2D2 getting baptized.” We saw an opportunity to participate in an exciting cultural conversation while proving to a new, younger audience of tech and art fans that Heinz is the definitive ketchup.
We turned to DALL-E 2, the most advanced Al image generator - so advanced that it wasn’t even available to the general public yet - and asked it what "ketchup" looked like. The result? Even to Al, ketchup looks like Heinz. And as the prompts got weirder, from "Renaissance Ketchup Bottle" to "Ketchup Tarot Card", the Al still generated results that looked like Heinz.
On social, we asked people to push the experiment further with suggestions for new ketchup-based image prompts. We took these suggestions and turned them into the first-ever campaign with visuals generated entirely by AI.
We then produced a run of special edition Heinz bottles replacing the label with our Heinz AI images, and even created an art gallery in the metaverse where people flocked to view all the Heinz AI images.
Originally launched in Canada and the US, our campaign quickly went global, generating over 850M earned impressions around the world (worth over 2500% more than our media investment). We received coverage in leading trade, art, tech, and lifestyle media outlets like Fast Company, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, and Forbes. On social, we saw an engagement rate 38% higher than past campaigns, and even other brands like Ducati and Sportsnet chimed in with AI Ketchup image mashup requests.
In the end we proved our point: Heinz is ketchup. And this time, even the machines agreed.
2023 Awards
Total Points: 3
Merit
Credits
Agency
Rethink
PR / Marketing Agency
Middle Child / Toronto
Zeno Group / Toronto
Client / Brand
Kraft Heinz
Music / Sound Production Company
Circonflex
Art Director
Zachary Bautista
Copywriter
Xavier Blais
Geoff Baillie
Aman Soin
Chief Creative Officer
Aaron Starkman
Mike Dubrick
Creative Director
Xavier Blais
Zachary Bautista
Photographer
Emma Laberge
Strategist
Sean McDonald
Julian Morgan
Account Director
David Greisman
Catherine Blouin-Mainville
Associate Creative Director
Geoff Baillie
Account Manager
Ashlynn Labinaz
Broadcast Producer
Alex Butt
Digital Producer
Sheldon Sam
Group Account Director
Jamie Sutherland
Head of Brand Communications
Megan Lang
Interactive Designer
Alex Fleming
Media agency
Carat
Starcom
Post Supervisor
Megan O'Connor
Shannon Ing
Emma Rozenblum
Print producer
Aj Merrick
Studio Artist
Cadu Rocha
Studio Director
Brad Kumar
Video VFX
Dustin Gamble
Jean-Nicolas Duval
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