Restaurants and food-service are critical sources of revenue and volume for Heinz. In fact, the Away-from-Home category makes up approximately 50% of Heinz’s business. But Heinz’s dominant position in the away-from-home segment was under threat. Heinz’s market share had shrunk, declining -5.5% since 2019. Private label brands were taking Heinz’s place on more restaurant tables and 35% of restaurants were now not serving Heinz. Needless to say, this was a big threat to the B2B side of our business, a substantial driver of growth for the brand.

The client challenged us to come up with an idea that would convince restaurant owners and management to order Heinz instead of private-label ketchup and reverse the negative share trend in the away from home channel.

Objectives were as follows:

Return the brand back to positive share growth: +1pp share vs. year ago.

Earn restaurant owners attention: 100M in earned impressions, new leads

We aimed to rally loyal fans to demand Heinz when dining out and get restaurant operators to take notice of this demand.

We called on all Heinz fans to break their silence by giving restaurants a different kind of tip. A “Tip for Heinz” or an extra dollar in addition to their regular tip to send restaurants a not-so-subtle message- it has to be Heinz.

A cheeky but polite little call out that let restaurants know they weren’t serving the good stuff. Consumers could get reimbursed for their tip if they took a picture of their receipt and posted it to Instagram or the campaign site.

The receipt became an unlikely media vehicle and a trojan horse to reach restaurant owners. And restaurants got the message from a voice they couldn’t ignore - the voice of the people.

Tip for Heinz is based on a simple truth: Generic ketchup just isn’t as good as Heinz. And watery, weak, not-as-good ketchup kind of wrecks your meal. You absolutely notice the difference. The numbers prove it: 4 in 5 people prefer Heinz over generic ketchup. But over a third of restaurants in the US don’t serve Heinz leaving 77% of restaurant goers ‘extremely disappointed’ when they have to put up with private-label ketchup instead of Heinz .

Insight: No one wants generic ketchup ruining their fries, but too many disappointed restaurant goers are having to suffer in silence.

What if instead of trying to convince restaurants, we used our best asset? Our fans. That was our breakthrough moment: Harness the power of Heinz fans and give them a voice - one that restaurant owners couldn’t ignore.

BACKGROUND:

Our core target for this campaign was restaurant operators. Affected by inflationary pressures, they had been forced to cut corners and many were switching to private label ketchup. By the time of this activation, over a third did not serve Heinz.

You’d think it would be easy to convince these mom and pop restaurant owners to switch back to Heinz. Afterall, Heinz is iconic, it’s a staple. But restaurant operators - a busy bunch, known for ignoring sales pitches and vendor calls - are notoriously hard to reach. Moreover, many were under the impression that patrons were OK with off-label ketchup. That they wouldn’t notice the difference between Heinz or any other generic ketchup.

CHALLENGE:

Our research proved that 4 in 5 Americans prefer Heinz over generic ketchup. So when restaurants don’t serve Heinz it leaves 77% of restaurant goers ‘extremely disappointed’.

The truth is no one wants generic ketchup wrecking their meal, but too many disappointed restaurant goers were having to suffer in silence.

So we asked ourselves, what if instead of trying to convince business owners directly, we amplified the voice of our fans? That was our breakthrough moment.

The challenge: Harness the power of Heinz fans to get restaurant owners to change their mind about Heinz.

SOLUTION:

We called on all Heinz fans to break their silence by giving restaurants a different kind of tip. A “Tip for Heinz” or an extra dollar in addition to their regular tip to send restaurants a not-so-subtle message- it has to be Heinz.

A cheeky but polite little call out that let restaurants know they weren’t serving the good stuff. Consumers could get reimbursed for their tip if they took a picture of their receipt and posted it to Instagram or the campaign site.

The receipt became an unlikely media vehicle and a trojan horse to reach restaurant owners. And restaurants got the message from a voice they couldn’t ignore - the voice of the people.

EXECUTION:

Our idea flipped the script on traditional B2B food marketing and leveraged the power of Heinz’s fan base i.e. the restaurant patrons to compel restaurants to make the change.

Our core mechanic was simple. Take a picture of your receipt with the Tip for Heinz.

Post the photo and we'll pay you back.

We developed a very targeted and contextual plan rooted in behaviors of frequent restaurant goers.

OOH placements prioritized areas near restaurants in key high traffic areas that did not carry Heinz to target fans on their way to a meal.

We created online social videos to demonstrate how people could leave a Tip for Heinz and served them to target foodie consumers.

We partnered with influencers in the foodie space who rallied participation in “Tip for Heinz”. Our TikTok Alpha Media placement was featured on the TikTok homepage for a full day.

‘Tip for Heinz’ proved that leveraging the voice of the consumer CAN be a powerful B2B tactic.

We were successful in achieving our business objective of returning the brand to positive share growth after years of decline.The campaign contributed to +2pp of share vs. 2021 for total ketchup, beating benchmarks.

We also got the attention of restaurant owners: The campaign got covered by trade and news media alike, reaching 181MM+ impressions, far exceeding benchmarks for placements and impressions by 7% and 21% respectively.

Heinz fans showed their love on social media, with TikTok content performing above benchmarks at view rates over 90%, and Click-thru rates above average across all social platforms.

279 consumers submitted “Tips for Heinz” – the largest number of B2B leads generated at Heinz through a marketing campaign. We’ve since converted these ‘tips’ to real business wins with restaurants actually listening to consumers and switching to Heinz.