When the risk of restaurants switching to cheaper ketchup had increased, we used a multichannel approach to prove to restaurant owners that Heinz Ketchup was good for business - rallying our shared consumer (Heinz fans and restaurant goers) to demand our B2B audience serve Heinz for us.

By highlighting the behaviour of restaurants refilling Heinz bottles with inferior ketchup, we triggered a passionate show of brand love that restaurants couldn’t ignore. Our fans even helped us identify new business leads, naming restaurants they suspected were committing Ketchup Fraud, so we could reach out.

Restaurants are a key audience for Heinz. Compared to retail consumers, they buy more ketchup, more often, and the condiments they serve help drive consumer preferences. Heinz B2B business is approximately $900 million in gross sales, so any loss is significant for the brand.

But as the economic climate worsened in 2023, and the price of food, including Heinz. skyrocketed, restaurateurs in particular were feeling the strain. Across the US, 92% of operators said the overall cost of food was a significant issue for their business.¹ Heinz needed to act fast to keep restaurateurs from switching to private label.

But as the most iconic ketchup brand in the world, a bottle of Heinz ketchup on the table holds a certain cache. Restaurants knew it. And so did our fans.

So when, through social listening, we discovered that restaurants were getting caught in the act of refilling Heinz bottles with generic ketchup, we knew this real behaviour and consumer pain point could be our opportunity to rally our fans to demand restaurants serve Heinz. Reminding restaurants of the value of serving Heinz Ketchup at a time when they might be considering making a switch.

Heinz is the world’s most beloved ketchup. It’s a thick, rich sauce unlike any other, which is why we’ve long said, “It Has to be Heinz.”

But as the global cost of living rises, everyone is feeling the pressures of inflation, meaning both businesses and consumers are cutting costs. In tough times restaurants often look to cheaper alternatives of lesser quality and taste than Heinz.

Our objective was to reinforce brand love for Heinz in order to show restaurants that while there are other ketchups, none of them can, or should, replace Heinz.

Instead of using traditional business-to-business strategies to convince restaurants to serve Heinz ketchup over other, cheaper alternatives, we used our fans. We launched a fully integrated campaign that exposed restaurants refilling Heinz bottles with generic ketchup. The campaign received an immediate passionate response on social, which showed restaurants that their customers truly believe “It has to be Heinz.” This outpouring of brand love proved to restaurant owners that serving Heinz was worth it, more powerfully than if we had launched a campaign trying to tell them ourselves.

Then to show our commitment to helping end ketchup fraud, we engaged Heinz fans to help us identify restaurants where they suspected ketchup fraud was being committed, so we could get them the real deal. We even launched a website where restaurants could anonymously admit to it themselves, in exchange for a supply of real Heinz.

In the face of restaurant’s real business challenges, we knew traditional B2B outreach from a brand wasn’t going to move the needle. We needed to show restaurants that serving Heinz was good for business, and to do that we needed to reach their customers instead.

Through social listening, we uncovered a widespread consumer pain point: restaurants have been refilling Heinz bottles with generic ketchup and people could tell. Across social, people expressed their frustration with this inferior ketchup swap. So, we developed the strategy to subvert this pain point to reaffirm our brand truth: It Has to be Heinz. Instead of doing what brands typically do and shying away from this behaviour we leaned into it rallying Heinz fans to help us stop it. We knew we didn’t need to tell restaurants that “It Has to be Heinz” if we got our fans to say it for us.

We started by bringing attention to Ketchup Fraud through social, DOOH, print and video assets, driving conversation that showed consumers demanding our restaurant B2B audience serve Heinz. Placements included high-impact DOOH in both New York & Chicago, along with a New York Times full-page feature and placements in US Weekly, InTouch and Life & Style.

Once the word was out, we ran a wider OOH campaign with QR codes that drove directly to our website, which, along with social media content, asked fans to tell us which restaurants have been committing ketchup fraud. Then we connected with these and other restaurants to provide them with the real deal, making sure that when people see Heinz – it’s actually Heinz.

The campaign ran from March 2023 to December 2024.

To get ahead of restaurants switching to private label, Heinz launched a campaign that leaned into a distinct truth about restaurant behavior and rallied fans to prove It Has to Be Heinz.

The campaign resulted in Heinz gaining 33 B2B customers, including Fenway Park, within the first month of the campaign. Consideration scores jumped +3pts and social engagement exceeded benchmarks by 666%.

This campaign unlocked another level of brand love. Fans shared passionate posts, such as “If it’s not Heinz…I’m not having it!” and, “yes, I know the difference.” reminding restaurants that customers don’t just want ketchup, they want Heinz.