The Drum Awards for Experience’s Food and Drink type went to Kraft Heinz for its innovative use of fashionable grunge to entice younger people.
The clear mustard is known as Heinz Ketchup. It has developed into a true world logo over the past 150 years. However, the company ran the risk of becoming irrelevant and appearing dated and romantic to younger people. With this younger goal, purchase consideration scores lagged, and Heinz started to disappear from the social conversation. Our goal was to develop a brand-new PR-led campaign that attracted attention from Gen Z and millennials who didn’t view Heinz as an up-to-date company that represents their values.
Many Fmcg companies have been utilizing quick fashion collabs to interact with Gen Z and teenagers. However, our research revealed that younger people are increasingly rejecting quickly clothing out of concern for the environment. 62 % of Gen Z and millennials have even begun looking for used clothing before buying new. Applied clothing that has spots and wear and tear is being embraced. And this served as the inspiration for our battle. We discovered Heinz didn’t need to create a brand-new clothing line because the brand was already present on clothing all over the world after staining clothing for more than 150 years.
A thrifted assortment of upscale and streetwear brands with distinctive Heinz Ketchup blot are included in the new series, known as The Vintage Drip. The largest selling platform in the world and a leader in vogue sustainability, thredUP, collaborated with us to curate the zero-waste collection. It included 157 distinctive objects with Heinz stains from a variety of manufacturers, including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Nike. To create the largest (unauthorized) company collab in history, we adopted the Heinz stain as a brand image that has been applied to the most well-known style logos. One that even stopped secondhand clothing from being thrown away and didn’t cost anything to make new clothes. At NYFW, style influencers wore items from the sold-out collection, and all proceeds went toward global hunger relief. Heinz and thredUP put the smear in conservation while other manufacturers embraced fast style collabs.
We saw an opportunity to introduce our green set in the lead up to NYFW at a time when fashion styles are on everyone’s mind. We collaborated with influencers in the clothing and streetwear industries before the launch to take the selection to life. These Gen Z clothing images, who were all proponents of environmentally friendly clothing, went by names like Antoni Bumba, Izzi Poopi, and Mirian Njoh. R&B song SZA applauded them for showcasing items from the series on their Instagram and TikTok feeds, and some even attended NYFW wearing Heinz-stained clothing from companies like Armani.
We launched the campaign with a comprehensive strategic PR strategy that led with fashion and lifestyle pictures showcasing the variety before New York Fashion Week, when clothing styles are more important and social and earned are full of talk about these trends. The HEINZ Vintage Drip was announced on social media, in an annexed earned policy video, and in a launch video. Visit thredup.com/heinz to buy.
The promotion was a huge success, generating more than 1.75 billion earned impressions that were 100 percent positive or neutral, which is 400% higher than our expectations. Our influence campaign ER was 583 % higher than average, which enabled us to attract more than 135k visitors to the bsc Heinz landing page. Our branded OLV had an ER over 100% above measures, a click-through level 20% higher than benchmark, and delivered over 10MM ideas.
Along with receiving healthy compliment from SZA, Heinz Vintage Drip even appeared on CBS, Unilad, and The Daily Mail. He even scored a whole section for the Drew Barrymore Show. Yet other companies, such as Tide and Burger King, jumped in on the activity by posting uninvitedly responsive social media posts.
We demonstrated that when ketchup is HEINZ, it’s never a stain- rather, an assertion by turning drips of the condiment into brand icons.