Although Heinz has a palpable fanbase, driven by irrational love for Heinz Ketchup, many question the quality and craft behind the making of this beloved product. Heinz was seen as an automated factory pumping out ketchup, instead of the reality of what it is - an organization led by passionate ketchup experts and enthusiasts.

This was particularly concerning for our Gen-Z growth audience, who is typically more health conscious, price conscious and ingredient savvy.

OBJECTIVE:

We needed to shift the perception of how Heinz is made – from faceless factories, to real people, working with real tomatoes, and driven by real irrational love.

CREATIVE PLATFORM:

Heinz Inspires and is Made With Irrational Love.

Inspires = The lengths our fans go to for the unmistakable taste of Heinz.

Made With = The lengths Heinz goes to make the unmistakable taste of Heinz.

CREATIVE IDEA: Heinz is Made With Irrational Love:

Show the obsessive love and care that Heinz puts into making our products, specifically ketchup.

At platform launch, we captured the real and irreverent irrational love that represents Heinz fandom at its best. It was now time to untap that same irrational love Heinz employees put into making Heinz Ketchup each and every day.

Consumers, especially Gen-Z, had become accustomed to traditional brand quality and integrity messaging. RTB-led communications had become wallpaper, immediately tuned out within social feeds. Through the eyes of Heinz’s most passionate employee, the specificity of his day-to-day tomato passion gave us the opportunity to break-through.

After visiting Heinz farms, we discovered an obsessive agricultural culture that went to extreme lengths to not only make ketchup, but tomatoes. In fact, Heinz is the only company in the world that oversees the entire ketchup-making process from seed to tomato to ketchup. And we employ tomato ketchup masters who oversee every part of the process to produce the highest quality product possible.

INSIGHT:

Whether you know it or not, Heinz goes to irrational lengths to make the best tomatoes in the world, so that you can irrationally love Heinz Ketchup.

STRATEGY:

We irrationally love tomatoes so you can irrationally love Heinz ketchup.

Our approach became simple - Bring to life the passion and expertise we found on the farm, in a charming and accessible way that would resonate with Gen-Z across social (specifically TikTok and Instagram).

As the Heinz global platform is grounded in telling true stories, we decided to cast a real employee: Hector Osorno, Head of Tomato Technology. No one loves Heinz more than Hector. An expert with over 33 years in the field, Hector knows tomatoes so well that he considers them not fruits or vegetables, but friends.

Instead of telling Hector’s story in a self-serious way that showcased his job description, we spotlighted his most personal and irrational behaviors in short-form social videos. The videos showed viewers how deep Hector's love of Heinz runs – from his obsession with all things tomatoes, his closet full of Heinz swag, to his love for dipping popcorn in Heinz Ketchup.

Through a five video social series, we captured his expertise, charm, and obsession. Hector became the face of Heinz’s “Made With Irrational Love” stories, humanizing and providing levity to an often complicated and dry process.

Hector became a social celebrity overnight. Fans clamored for Hector plushies, dueted our videos, and made irrational statements like, “I love Hector more than my parents.” The series garnered over 150MM impressions, 99% positive sentiment, and received over 283K comments in just 2 weeks, beating both organic engagement and paid view-through benchmarks by over 10X, and paid ER by 2X.

Most importantly, the campaign met our objective to shift consumer perception of the brand. People started to recognize that Heinz isn’t made in an ambiguous factory – it’s made by real people, with a distinct irrational love that reminds everyone it has to be Heinz.

"I don’t usually stan brands, but I’ve never had a ketchup as good as Heinz. This man knows his stuff.”– @Jake

“Gotta appreciate a dude with passion for his craft.” – @Iamdicknean

“I wish someone loved me as much as Hector loves tomatoes.” – @Frankie