After more than 150 years growing tomatoes, Heinz finally launched pasta sauces. But let’s be real – it was late for a tomato pasta sauce launch. In fact, it was ridiculous how long it took.

Embracing our witty TOV we recognized our mistake and apologized to the public, through “Ridiculously Late. Ridiculously Good”. A platform that also tapped into cultural moments that were also ridiculously late, i.e. the Lionesses winning the 2022 Euros.

A year later, we grew our platform with a fame idea that generated a lot of buzz: Heinz x Absolut, inspired by Gigi Hadid’s viral “Penne alla vodka”.

During the third year we emphasized brand superiority, focusing on everything that made the range different, launching a concept with greater brand presence. Ridiculously good, Ridiculously Heinz.

We needed more. A fame idea that put us in everyone’s mouth once again.

No one has more say about pasta than the Italians. And there’s no one more qualified to put an end to the ongoing ridiculous debate in the UK over the launch of the new Heinz Tomato Ketchup Pasta Sauce. For World Pasta Day we had an idea: let the Italians have their say. We set up a free phone line connecting them directly to Heinz UK, and we announced it in a big way so that the whole country could join in. Giving Italians the chance to speak up for pasta on World Pasta Day was the best gift we could offer—especially after what we did in another country.

We ran a social listening research to learn what the conversation was about pasta in the UK. That’s how we found a trend pranking people by putting ketchup on pasta. The trend had fueled an already existing debate (similarly to pineapple on pizza), with lovers and haters quickly joining.   

That was the breakthrough moment: It was the ideal setting to leverage our identity as #1 brand on Tomato Ketchup (with 98% awareness in the UK) while staying faithful to what consumers love about us – taste – and how they consume it – with pasta. All this while underlining what sets us apart: we’re not Italian.   

The insight: Heinz ketchup is so loved, consumers add it to everything, everywhere. Even to their spaghetti.   

The strategic decision: We decided to offend centuries of pasta etiquette by proposing Heinz to join the debate by launching a Ketchup flavored pasta sauce.  

We set up a direct free phone line to get Italians in touch with Heinz UK, and we invited them to do so through a strategically placed billboard in one of the busiest squares in the center of Milan, Colonne Di San Lorenzo. The giant billboard (14x8 meters) presented the controversial new product along with the question “Ridiculously wrong?”, the phone number and a very direct call to action: Tell them what we think.  Underneath the billboard, we installed a classic English phone boot for Italians to call for free.  

The billboard was on display from October 16th to October 31st, including World Pasta Day (October 25th).

By pissing an entire country off with our new product, Heinz Ketchup Pasta Sauce became the product with the highest sales rate of the entire range, increasing to 35 units per store per week, with a sold out in Tesco – surpassing by far our strongest competitor, Dolmio, during the promotion.

Not only was the new product sold, but also the entire Heinz Pasta Sauces range grew by +38% during the campaign.

We achieved more than 500M impressions in earned media, appearing in more than 600 media internationally. Igniting a social debate with #KetchupOnPasta hashtag reaching 12M organic impressions and a 6%ER (vs 3% average).

The activation in Italy achieved 20M views on TikTok and Meta, and 3M impressions from the outdoor piece in Milan in just one day. Italians definitely hated the idea, and spread the word, resulting in more than 45M in earned media.

And obviously, we also got lots of insults. Didn’t count them.