The Heinz Business had a litany of issues to overcome internally and externally.

Externally

- Heinz means something different depending on where you are in the world. So we were challenged with unifying the organization as every region's needs, consumer climate and product benefit are different and resulted in inconsistent strategies and executions. To maximize impact, we require local relevance with global resonance.

- Communications had become expected and functionally focused, not breaking through with consumers

- Due to Private Label expansion and the proliferation of local brands, Heinz market dominance was under threat.

- Margin challenges due to unprecedented rising costs as a result of inflation.

- Heinz global stature required them to raise prices higher than competition. As a result, Heinz saw the largest volume sales decrease in over a decade.

- Inflation gave consumers a reason to consider Private Label and local brands. Forcing Heinz to justify its price premium around the globe.

Internally

- Culture of creativity wasn’t a priority; brand managers were pushed to be more financially driven than consumer-centric, prioritizing brand protection over disruptive thinking.

- Focus on short-term remedies instead of investing in high-quality, modern brand building.

- Uninspired creative culture hindered innovation and stunted growth

- No one global brand vision or strategy to unite the world

- Duplication of work due to the silos and brand chasms

Heinz was at risk of going from a globally iconic brand to a brand that couldn’t keep up with the pace of modern times. Under threat globally, inconsistent externally and uninspired internally, the organization had become stagnant in its approach and as a result the business suffered.

Though Heinz could have kept pushing functional messages and price promotions to quickly defend share, they chose the harder route. Recognizing they had untapped potential growth the Heinz team sought to urgently reset the iconic brand to ensure the 150 year old brand is relevant for another 150 years.

The challenge was to breathe new life into Heinz, to create a singular strategy that ignited every department internally and every fan of the brand externally. The singular objective was to unite every one of Heinz markets around the world, to turn the brand into a modern creative powerhouse and to drive sales growth internationally.

Armed with the objective to unite every market into a modern creative powerhouse, Heinz set out to reset priorities internally and build new teams and streams focused on creativity.

The first solution, setting one global ambition - to be the world’s most irresistible food brand.

Then, enabling the transformation through organizational design and building a culture of creativity:

--Creating the internal Accelerating Creative Excellence programme and awards to foster appetite for award-winning work

--Accelerating experimentation and innovation through a New Ventures/Agile Disruptive Innovation team, with the goal of testing and learning in-market. Utilizing incubator approaches and small runs before scaling into widely distributed products.

--Creating an in-house social agency to move at the speed of culture like never before

Establishing a Global Heinz team with members spanning different continents - Heinz for the first time had consistent stewardship

With more innovative ways to bring the brand to life, Heinz turned its efforts on consumer facing comms. Through research in local markets, Heinz shifted gears and the model, despite market volatility, by realizing a simple truth united them all; no matter where you are, people have an irrational love for Heinz. This simple thought was the single point-of-view the brand needed.

Implementing Heinz's transformation required a multifaceted approach, focusing on cultural resonance, consumer engagement, innovation, omnichannel, and organizational agility.

Internal Culture: Reorganized to upskill talent on strategy development and energize brand priorities. Additionally, Heinz reframed success and failure for the entire organization.

Reinvigorated Global Identity: Relaunched Heinz under its first global platform that resonated across cultures and categories. Rather than contrive something, we simply celebrated and humanized real yet pervasive stories of Irrational Love, turning our consumers into advocates. Accompanied with a completely new visual identity to further drive consistency.

Fresh take on Business-to-Business: Heinz aimed to inspire irrational love not only among consumers but with B2B partnerships. We took a non-traditional approach to what we offered our business partners. Resulting in acts like Ketchup Fraud and the Heinz REMIX that drove traffic in fresh ways.

Media & Consumer Interaction: Instead of traditional media KPIs we sought to hack culture and earn attention. Putting a premium on earned over paid drove our brand point-of-view while increasing consumer engagement.

Product Innovation: giving license to the renewed innovation department to break from the norms to fuel Heinz fandom. This led to ideas like Seemingly Ranch, Absolut Vodka Pasta Sauce and Paper Ketchup Bottles.

Despite market volatility, we inspired the entire organization to do things differently and it paid off. The results showed internally pretty quickly. Marketing employee turnover globally dropped by 50% from 2019 to 2023.

Heinz achieved Iconic Status in KANTAR’s Brand Health review, of which, only 4% of all brands achieve, proving the brand's revival.

In 2023, Heinz was the #1 most creative food brand globally at Cannes Lions, underscoring Heinz's transformation into a modern creative powerhouse and its ability to implement a singular strategy to ignite creativity globally.

The hack culture to earn attention approach garnered 15.2B+ earned PR impressions globally (3x vs. 2022).

North American Retail +6%: indicating a successful turnaround in a crucial market, helping to drive sales growth internationally.

International Retail +10%: demonstrating its ability to capture market share and expand its global footprint.

Business-to-Business sales increased +22%. Reflecting Heinz ability to successfully penetrate diverse market segments using one brand point-of-view.

Overall global Heinz sales grew by 12%, validating the effectiveness of the revitalization strategy. Proving that no matter where you are in the world, It Has To Be Heinz.