How Heinz apologised to a whole nation

Context

Years of "It has to be Heinz" had stressed just how uniquely special their ketchup was, and their packages had boasted their 57 tomato varieties claim for decades. But still, for all that brand love, people instinctively knew how wrong it was to put ketchup on pasta. It's the wrong kind of tomato sauce. But as the experts in all things tomatoes, Heinz decided to launch a real pasta sauce.

Objectives

• Capture as much share as possible in the pasta sauce market
• Increase awareness of the product range at launch
• Get people to love the new sauces as much as they loved Heinz tomato ketchup

Strategy

Heinz saw the ridiculousness of the launch. For one thing, Heinz shouldn't go on pasta. For another, a brand that specialised in tomatoes for decades should already have a pasta sauce. So they embraced it, and decided that the way they wanted to catch people's attention was by apologising to them. The goal was to make Heinz' new range as distinctive on supermarket shelves as possible, while hopefully transferring the brand love for Heinz' ketchup to the new product lineup.

Campaign

Heinz created a simple, witty campaign, apologising to the British public in newspapers, OOH, and social media for being so late and promising them that the new Heinz Pasta Sauce would make it worth the wait.

Results

While the campaign was still on air, the brand peaked a 10% market share (vs. target 4%). Sales increased by 7.5x from a value of $800k to $6 million.

Extension

The Heinz team knew there was massive room for growth in the pasta sauce market even after the successful launch. In the following years, they partnered with alcoholic drinks brand Absolut to capitalise on the vodka pasta trend started largely by Gigi Hadid, as well as continuing with the campaign line to celebrate the England Lionesses' Euros win.