The purpose of the Heinz x Absolut Vodka Pasta Sauce wasn’t about product sales, but about using the hype around the partnership to drive mass awareness of Heinz’s new pasta sauce range, to establish Heinz as a serious player in the category.

The inspiration for the campaign came from TikTok, where "Penne alla vodka" continued to trend years after Gigi Hadid's viral lockdown pasta recipe. This presented an opportunity to add value & sexiness to the brand and category with a new vodka sauce.

Finding the right partner was crucial, and Absolut was the perfect match with its "hip and "spirited" characteristics” (attributes quoted from conducted research).

The creative idea drew inspiration from Absolut's successful 80s and 90s print campaigns, resulting in iconic key visuals with "Absolutely Tomato", "Absolutely Foodie", "Absolutely Pasta", and "Absolutely Heinz, Ridiculously Good" taglines. The merge of Absolut’s 80s look & feel, with Heinz’s pasta sauce taglines, resulted in win-win platform that aligned with both brands' tone of voices and personalities.

The campaign was executed in four steps (see infographic below). In the “seeding” stage, we used scarcity and desirability; by partnering with selected influencers and journalists before making the product available for mainstream purchase, we generated significant organic buzz.

Only after the buzz did we make the product available for pre-order and purchase. Initially, it was sold in selected exclusive stores before going national.

The sales were an absolute success, with the product selling out and store managers limiting purchases to two per customer. The campaign generated 6.6M organic TikTok views across 30+ countries.

It also became the #1 selling SKU in its category and had a halo effect on the rest of the Heinz Pasta Sauces range, boosting sales by an impressive 52%.

The campaign achieved its objectives: spontaneous awareness, consideration and purchase intent were higher than Sacla, Barilla and Mutti, market share of Heinz Pasta Sauces reached the desired peak of 10%, and Heinz Masterbrand brand attributes were up as high as +8pp vs previous year.

Finally, by leveraging Absolut's coolness and Heinz's salience, the campaign successfully engaged with Gen Zs, driving 60% incrementality to the category.