In the midst of economic uncertainty, we set ourselves to disrupt the category, challenging the established investments of Dolmio and Loyd Grossman.

Our bold ambition is to become #1 pasta sauce brand in the UK in 10 years. To do this, we needed to:  

- Quickly surpass the tail, challenger brands, and reach 10% market share in just three years.

- Be in the top 3 brands in our key brand health metrics:  

--- Spontaneous awareness: reach 15%, surpassing all challenger brands.  

--- Consideration: reach 45%, surpassing all challenger brands.  

- Drive quality and trust attributes for the Heinz brand, was also imperative.  

- Drive value and incrementality to the category – we wanted at least 30% or our sales coming from incremental shoppers to the category. 

The platform was deployed in three stages from 2021 to today.   

ANNOUNCING (2021- 2022)

Heinz launched its pasta sauces over 150 years of tomato expertise, apologizing for the delay through “Ridiculously Late. Ridiculously Good” campaign.

We also capitalized on tardy cultural moments like The Lionesses winning the 2022 Euros.

ACCELERATING (2022-2023)

A year later we jumped onto the TikTok trend “penne alla vodka”, inspired by Gigi Hadid, launching Heinz x Absolut Vodka Pasta Sauce: “Absolutely Heinz, Ridiculously Good”.  

We launched an innovation made to provoke that divided the country: Tomato Ketchup Pasta Sauce and invited the consumer to decide whether the product was: “Ridiculously Wrong?”. 

ESTABLISHING  (2023-today)

Leveraging the Ridiculously Good campaign, we emphasized product superiority through taglines like “Ridiculously Fiery, Ridiculously Good” and “Ridiculously Tempting, Ridiculously Good".

Recently we’ve launched an entertainment-led product, jumping into another category and tapping again on a trend: The Godfather Pasta Sauce. 

Key strategic decisions:

Leverage the Power of the Brand.

To benefit from Heinz’s brand’s iconicity we needed to stay true to the foundations and respect Heinz’s signature personality, values and purpose, with an idea born out of Heinz’s wittiness.

Put the Product at the Forefront.

In a category dominated by two household brands, we knew putting the product’s superiority upfront would boost brand awareness and recognition, driving sales and growth. It needed to be our hero.

“Ridiculously Good” Over and Over Again. 

Consistency ensures consumers continue to remember Heinz pasta sauces by building on distinctive brand assets and reinforcing existing memory structures. 

Tap into Culture to Involve the Consumer. 

In a world where trends change daily, we needed to embrace creativity at the speed of culture. The Ridiculously Good platform needed to evolve over time to ensure continued product relevance with consumers. 

The launch of Heinz Pasta Sauces was the brand’s first venture into adjacencies in 15 years, resulting highly successful.

1. Heinz has reached a 10% market share and secured its space in the category.

2. Heinz has drove category growth, achieving a 91% increase while competitors declined by 23% and 21%.

 3. Heinz has overdelivered on all brand health metrics, with significant growth in spontaneous awareness (+13pp since 2021), consideration (+9pp since 2021) and purchase intent (11pp since 2021).

4. The campaign has also positively impacted Heinz’s masterbrand, by improving very relevant attributes to current Heinz challenges, such as trusted brand (+7pp) and quality (+8pp).

5. Heinz has also helped the whole category to grow, driving volume growth and continuously recruiting new shoppers with a 60% incrementality to the category.