Hellmann’s is the world’s No.1 mayonnaise brand. But while it dominates the category in most individual countries, in Germany, it’s a very different story. From an awareness standpoint, the brand lags behind its competitors in fourth position. In fact, over 8 out of 10 Germans don’t even remember the name Hellmann’s when asked about mayo.

Complicating matters, Germany is a ketchup-loving country. From a market value standpoint, the ketchup business is 33% larger than mayonnaise. And when it comes to ketchup, there’s no bigger brand than Heinz, dominating a fractured market with a 28.4% share.

To alter the business landscape, the most direct strategic route would be to take Heinz head on. But advertising regulations prevented us from using Heinz’s IP and with no comparative claims, we needed to find an alternative route.

Germany is home to 35,490 people named Heinz, the most in the world. But just because your name is Heinz, doesn’t necessarily mean you love ketchup more than mayo, or Heinz condiments more than Hellmann’s. Your name might not reflect your taste.

Could we tap into mayo preference amongst people called Heinz and give the rest of Germany a compelling reason to reconsider their condiment choice?

Introducing Heinz Becomes Hellmanns.

We put out a direct call-call-to-action on social and asked if there were any mayo-lovers out there called Heinz, that would be up for changing their names from Heinz to Hellmanns.

In this way, we circumvented the advertising rules that prevented us from mentioning our competitor and earned masses of attention online and in the media, ultimately raising the status and brand recognition of Hellmann’s in Germany and worldwide.

Hellmann’s mayo was overlooked in ketchup-loving Germany. So, we tapped into the power of advocacy and extreme brand fandom to drive conversion, bringing the brand into culture.

We specifically targeted Germans named Heinz to be our driving force, publicly declaring their mayo preference and going as far as changing their name to Hellmanns to prove it.

To help drive awareness, consideration, and purchase intent for Hellmann’s in Germany, we needed to make the brand iconic in German culture so that more people would think of and buy Hellmann’s when they were shopping for mayo.

We focused on the name change from Heinz to Hellmanns to fuel superfan brand love and to declare preference for Hellmanns over Heinz. We maintained a playful tonality to ensure that while we were clearly “poking the bear,” it was all in the spirit of good fun.

We started by putting the word out via an organic social post on the Hellmann’s Deutschland Instagram channel, asking if there were any mayo-loving Heinzes who would be willing to change their name from Heinz to Hellmanns.

Beyond the positive response from the community, four mayo-loving individuals named Heinz enthusiastically volunteered to make the ultimate switch. So, we put their names on Hellmann’s jars and featured them in our campaign. And we made one, Christoph Heinz, the centrepiece of our communications by documenting his name change journey in long-form content.

From there, we used always-on social engagement to help drive online buzz. We even got Thomas Heinz, the German star of last year’s award-winning Heinzjack campaign, to join the fun.

We then opened it up to more people, giving anyone the opportunity to express their mayo love by changing their online social handles to ‘Hellmanns’.

The campaign was successful, driving the association between mayo and Hellmann’s, getting people to love and intend-to-buy the brand, and most importantly, buy Hellmann’s mayo instead of ketchup.

• 79% agree they are more likely to think of Hellmann’s when they think of mayonnaise (brand uplift study)

• Increased brand love by 52.9% (brand lift study)

• Drove purchase consideration by 200%, putting Hellmann’s ahead of all competitors (brand lift study)

• 74% agreed that the campaign would make them more likely to buy Hellmann’s mayo in addition to ketchup, and 59% even agreed they would buy it instead of ketchup (brand lift study)

• On Hellmann’s Deutchland IG channel, we drove a +60% increase in engagement

• Achieved 85 pieces of earned coverage in Germany across mainstream media, and 5 pieces of coverage in global marketing titles (Ad Age Creativity Editor’s Pick, Famous Campaigns, Creative Salon, LBBOnline, Campaign Canada)