Heinz is the definitive ketchup brand. It's what people think of when they think of ketchup. But we need to reinforce that in culturally relevant ways to continue to demonstrate our value and relevance with our audience.

With the rise of artificial intelligence dominating headlines, we set out to prove this out at the biggest tech conference in the world - SxSW. Powered by CHATGPT4, our interactive Heinz AI Ketchup board activation brought to life the undeniable connection between ketchup and Heinz in real-time, demonstrating the convergence of cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and our brand identity with our audience.

Last year, the first Beta text-to-image AI generators captivated the internet with their ability to create images from written prompts. We used this opportunity to prove that even with artificial intelligence, ketchup looks like Heinz.

But since then, AI image generators have rapidly evolved. What started as one Beta program has become dozens of state-of-the-art generators capable of making photorealistic images in seconds. And now they make “ketchup” look like Heinz more than ever.

So we brought this demonstration of brand ubiquity to life with an interactive, AI powered live ad generator. At SxSW, the biggest tech conference in the world, we invited attendees to input prompts related to ketchup. With their input, our AI-powered system interpreted their suggestions on the spot and generated images of ketchup in every scenario or world you could imagine, and all with one thing in common - it looked like Heinz.

We recognized that our audience wouldn’t resonate with another brand talking about themselves. So we used an entirely impartial method to solidify Heinz as the ultimate ketchup. Our decision to unveil the board at SxSW was rooted in the recognition that it serves as the annual convergence point for the brightest minds in technology. And since this year’s conference had a focus on artificial intelligence, what better way to prove Heinz’s icon status than to the world’s foremost innovators in tech?

The immersive experience within Canada House (a hub frequented by influential figures from Canadian agencies and film companies) allowed us to prove to cynics and skeptics alike that to AI, ketchup is Heinz.

Our interactive Heinz AI Ketchup board made its debut at SxSW, the world’s biggest tech conference, where the impact of AI has been a focal point in recent years. Here, we invited the world’s leading experts in AI to test the technology for themselves – and witness firsthand that when you ask AI to generate “ketchup”, it generates Heinz. Positioned strategically, the activation served as a powerful reinforcement of the brand's iconic status.

The interactive board invited participants to complete the prompt “ketchup bottle in…”.

Suggestions like “ketchup bottle in a haunted house”,“ketchup bottle in my beer cooler”, and “ketchup bottle in Dune 2”, all had one thing in common – they all made ketchup bottles that looked just like Heinz. Harnessing the power of Chat GPT 4, the board live generated hundreds of unique Heinz ads, without being asked for “Heinz.” Then, we turned the live images into a national OOH campaign.

By tapping into a contemporary and culturally relevant way to connect with Heinz consumers at SxSW, we were able to showcase the machine to thousands of attendees at the festival with our wild postings outside Canada House, as well as the machine inside Canada house (with 1500 attendees over a two day period).

Within Canada House at our on-site activation, using key positioning near a high-traffic area we were able to have 200+ tech enthusiasts interact directly with the AI machine to input prompts for their own unique experience.

The average time spent per consumer engaging with our activation was approximately 5 minutes, with most people participating with more than one entry. Every time there was a new image displayed, the full room of hundreds of attendees (and Heinz fans) could see the result.

We then turned these “Heinz AI” images into a national DOOH campaign garnering 158,257 impressions.