The concept was to bring Don Draper's idea to life. In the show, the fictional Heinz clients may not have seen his vision, but the real Heinz did. The idea was to faithfully recreate the ads proposed in the show and then seed them out in areas where Mad Men fans would find them. As 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the show's beginning, it was the perfect time to launch as fans become nostalgic about the show.

We reached out to LionsGate and AMC to get the rights for the campaign and, for the first time, took an idea from a fictional agency and ran it in the real world, in both billboards, prints and social posts.

And while it was even more meaningful to know the reference, everyone would understand the message because a naked plate of fries isn't the same without the great taste of Heinz ketchup.

We needed to faithfully bring to life Don' s vision for Heinz. This meant recreating the pitch boards exactly as they were in the episode. But this also meant getting approvals from LionsGate, to AMC to the show's creator Matthew Wiener.

We turned each of the three ads into billboards in New York (the home of Don Draper's agency) as well as ads print ads. To adapt a campaign from the 60s to current times, we used promoted social posts with pictures of the Billboards in Mad Men fan pages and forums, targeting the show's fans specifically, as they managed to viralize the message even amongst non fans of the show who were then exposed to the campaign's meaning.

We pushed the message further with a themed press release in old typewriter font, from the fictional agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and the show's creators appearing on the credits.

+ 2.6 BILLION MEDIA IMPRESSIONS

+ USD $59 MILLION IN EARNED MEDIA

HEINZ MOST TALKED ABOUT AD CAMPAIGN EVER

HEINZ MOST EFFICIENT AD CAMPAIGN EVER

4540% RETURN OF INVESTMENT

THE FIRST REVERSE PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN ADVERTISING

DON DRAPER'S MOST SUCCESSFUL AD CAMPAIGN

SOURCES:

ABMC, CISON, STARCOM, HEINZ U.S.