HEINZ | IT HAS TO BE HEINZ | 2024
"Even AI says Heinz": how a 150-year-old brand proved its strength / HEINZ "IT HAS TO BE HEINZ"
Ask an AI to draw ketchup, and a Heinz bottle shows up on its own. Ask a person, same result. Behind the scenes at restaurants, fake ketchup gets refilled into Heinz bottles. The work that spent five years collecting proof of this blindingly obvious fact won the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024.
The problem
In 2019, Heinz was facing its fifth straight year of declining sales. Even a 150-year-old icon brand can see its position slowly eroded.
The insight
Instead of saying it, they decided to prove it. They kept showing, again and again, in a different cultural moment each time, the fact that Heinz is synonymous with ketchup.
The idea
An experiment where AI, given neutral prompts, still produced Heinz. A piece that called out the act of refilling fake ketchup into Heinz bottles. A social experiment asking strangers, anonymously, to "draw ketchup." They even released a fiendishly hard Heinz-red jigsaw puzzle during the pandemic. All separate initiatives, but every single one built around one line: "It Has to Be Heinz."
What happened
Over five years, sales grew 12% annually, and the brand took back 3.2 points of share from competitors. In 2023, it earned Kantar's "Icon" status. In 2024, on top of the Grand Prix, it also won a Creative Strategy Bronze.
Afterthought
Ask AI, ask a person, or peek behind a restaurant counter — the answer is always the same. Proving this obvious truth from a different angle every time, for five straight years: that consistency and persistence are something else. Makes me want to stick to one line of my own too.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2024
Featured in
- The Egg Didn't Crack — 60 Years of Proof in ActionShowing, not telling. Why is this the one trick that never gets old?
