Heinz is one of the most loved brands on the planet5.

The unlikely outsider.

Yet, in the GCC, its recognition lags at 60% compared to 99% in the UK. In a diverse MEA condiments market worth $11bn, with ketchup holding an 18% share, Heinz is surprisingly the underdog; just 10% of ketchup sold is Heinz.

We need to increase the brand’s footprint.

Traditionally targeting Arab mothers, Heinz’s mealtime role was secure yet limited, often losing to more affordable brands. To boost penetration, the strategy needed to include millennials, the main grocery spenders, broadening Heinz's reach and giving them more value, especially with inflation.

Paradoxically, this new audience were primed by mothers to believe that ketchup is only for Western occasions. And because they were raised on it as kids, they see it as old school.

The challenge: Show that Heinz Ketchup is anything but a relic.

The uncomfortable truth: audience indifference is the enemy we faced in our pursuit of building relevancy. Moreover, Heinz wasn't unliked; it simply wasn't top-of-mind for many dining scenarios, sidelined in favor of options that seemed more contemporary or culturally in tune.

Millennials in the UAE average 8 hours and 36 minutes of screen time daily, facing an overload of content that often leads to indifference—a filtering out of the constant barrage to maintain focus and control6.

CUTTING THROUGH INDIFFERENCE.

A significant number of millennials are indifferent to Heinz Ketchup, so they maintain an outdated belief that it’s comfort food or a slice of nostalgia. If we wanted them to reappraise their view of the brand, we would need to show that Heinz Ketchup is anything but a relic.

Only the power of fame would enable Heinz Ketchup to squeeze through any perceptual barriers7, so we would have to do something fame-making to create standout.

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How could we be famous?

BY BEING THE PLAYFUL REBELLION OF THE CATEGORY

More than any other generation, millennials in the GCC are drawn to a playful pushing of the boundaries, things that defy the algorithm. Things that are playful and entertaining appeal to our ‘broad beam attention’.

Things like the Ravi x adidas partnership or Ronaldo playing for a Saudi team; neither are meant to happen, neither follow the narrative. Then there’s 47Soul, the band behind Shamstep that’s mixing traditional dabke with electronica. And Poems of Consumption, the Lebanese artist posting poems in Amazon reviews. Both disrupting the norm.

Heinz Ketchup, on the other hand, follows the rules: they and every other brand of ketchup have been abiding by the same decades-long conventions.

So, when we discovered that 45% of Millennials don’t know which way up to store their ketchup and want to use every drop, we found an opportunity to show the brand can shake things up by solving this problem.

What’s the fame-making strategy?

TRANSFORM PACKAGING FROM A SYMBOL OF TRADITION INTO A SYMBOL OF DISRUPTION. There’s nothing more rebellious than changing one of the most iconic pieces of packaging, the Heinz squeezy bottle.