This campaign was built around the insight that the target market (people that value quality ingredients, good taste, and are willing to pay for this) find online peer reviews more honest and authentic than traditional market research taste tests. We needed an honest and believable campaign that showed them the power of the most unbiased taste test, saving restaurants and proving beyond any doubt that great ketchup can (sort of) save the day. The direct activation, led to content which generated an even larger campaign, and raised the star status of every one of our participating restaurants.

Curtice Brothers is a 3 times Great Taste® award-winning ketchup that had achieved prestige amongst world famous chefs and food experts. Whilst achieving great results in the culinary world, Curtice Brothers was still relatively unknown amongst everyday consumers.

How do we get them to take note of the great tasting quality ketchup we have in a believable way that they can relate to?

As a challenger brand, there isn’t a big budget to promote the campaign, so we had to attract attention with a big idea that would overcome restrictions in money and resources.

To prove the unique quality of Curtice Brothers, we let the brutally honest users of Tripadvisor review the ketchup without even knowing it.

We found the worst restaurants on Tripadvisor, gave them bottles of Curtice Brothers and waited to see the difference that our ketchup would make to their ratings. We then showed the Curtice Brothers effect on billboards and geolocated digital ads close to the restaurants.

Target everyday consumers of all ages that have a disposable income and a penchant for eating out which shows that taste is important to them. They recognize online reviews as one of the most credibly source of unbiased information. Speaking to them on a localized scale gives credibility, but the true power of this is the word of mouth and PR that spreads amongst fellow foodies.

The bottles of ketchup were delivered to the restaurants in October 2021. The new comments started to appear between December and January. The campaign was produced in January. Billboards and social media ads made with real comments from Tripadvisor users showed the effect of the ketchup on the food. The ads were placed next to, or triggered very close to, the restaurants.

17% increase in sales.

Every restaurant reported an increase of at least half a star rating

Not a single restaurant closed down.

Story featured in eight different languages across the world.