When Heinz found out that one of its licensed products, Aunt Bessie’s Frozen Mashed Potato, was one of Delia Smith’s ‘Cheat Ingredients’ in her 2008 television series and book, it asked its PR agency to come up with a creative campaign that would make the most of the ‘Delia Effect’ by stimulating sales of a product that had never had national media coverage.

With predictions of a disastrous British summer, the team’s inspired idea was to use the comforting British mash to create an all-weather alternative to the traditional 99 ice-cream cone with chocolate flake. The Mash Cone featured a pork sausage sticking out of scoops of Aunt Bessie’s mash, topped with gravy and peas.

Thousands of cones were distributed to consumers around the UK from the Mash Van, a 1950s-style ice-cream van, complete with slogan and theme tune (Monster Mash, of course). Journalists were bombarded with creative communications including a fake recipe book with frozen mash recipes, and chocolate cupcakes made using the mash.On a PR budget of less than £100,000, the team helped to nearly double sales of Aunt Bessie’s Frozen Mashed Potato, and dispelled negative perceptions about the taste of frozen mash.

The team worked with a food stylist to create the Mash Cone: a wafer cone with a sausage sticking out of two scoops of Aunt Bessie’s Frozen Mashed Potato, with gravy and peas.The Mash Van was built like a traditional ice-cream van, complete with slogan (‘hot and creamy, warm and dreamy’) and Monster Mash theme tune. It was taken on a London media tour in April 2008, followed by a consumer tour of Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and London.A press release announcing ‘the first all-weather alternative to the 99 Flake’ was issued after Britain’s worst April snowstorm.Women’s and lifestyle media were sent a ‘cookery book’ press pack with frozen mash recipe cards. Journalists could call a ‘Cheat Hotline’ for mash supplies to be couriered over, and were sent chocolate cupcakes made with the mash, as per Delia’s book. Reader offers and competitions were set up in women’s weeklies.

The team used the ‘Delia Effect’ to change perceptions of frozen mash, exceeding the KPIs. The Mash Van tour was seen by around 300,000 people and more than 3,000 Mash Cones - double the target - were distributed.

The campaign got Aunt Bessie’s mash written and talked about in the consumer and national media for the first time, including Metro and the Express, Heart FM, BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2. The campaign led to 80 pieces of coverage – the target was 50 - with a total OTS of 120m: 10 pieces of national coverage; two consumer publications; 13 regional newspapers; 14 radio stations; 10 online news sites, and discussed on at least 31 blogs.During the week of the Mash Van tour, sales of Aunt Bessie’s Frozen mash nearly doubled compared with the same week in 2007: Newcastle +93% Manchester +154%; Birmingham +168%; London: +190% Bristol: +88%.