Ketchup anyone, we all love tomato sauce so much that we don’t bother to check what exactly is refilled into those restaurant or café bottles.
Heinz is addressing this “problem” in its latest Ketchup Fraud campaign that has the slogan “It has to be Heinz”. The brand says restaurant owners have been refilling Heinz bottles with inferior, generic ketchup brands pretending to be the thick and rich sauce customers are familiar with.
Megan Lang, Heinz North American Marketing Director, said the campaign was based on an insight found in a simple but powerful Snapchat video where someone was seen refilling a Heinz ketchup bottle with another generic brand. She added they discovered that this was a true and widespread behavior through social listening. “We thought, what better way to express our core brand belief that ‘It Has To Be Heinz’ than to simply amplify an existing consumer behavior in a supportive and funny way.”
Mike Dubrick, chief creative officer and partner for Rethink, said it’s a real behavior that they noticed all over the world and wanted to bring to light. “It shows just how much weight the Heinz brand carries and how much even just the bottle speaks to quality.” Dubrick said they put in the whole team to bring to life such a global behavior. “While we’re flattered by the behavior, ultimately we want to make it unnecessary and are excited to work with the restaurants to do so.” Rethink has worked with Heinz in recent years, with works including Draw Ketchup; Ketchup AI; and Heinz Vintage Drip.
As part of the campaign, Heinz will be putting up large-scale billboards in New York City and Chicago, alongside advertisements in magazines, newspapers, and on social media platforms, to spotlight the ongoing issue.
Moreover, the brand is encouraging consumers to dob in restaurants they think might be committing “ketchup fraud” by tagging them on its Instagram page. Heinz says it will contact the most tagged and biggest offenders in an effort to create a solution, which helps consumers get the ketchup that they want, while supporting the local restaurants.
