Heinz's Legacy: How Risk, Flexibility and Vision Make Ketchup a Top Performing Brand

“Heinz is the number one loved brand across all of our markets,” says Passant El-Ghannam, marketing director MEA at The Kraft Heinz Company. “And in Egypt, we have the highest brand power.” 

But this dominance wasn’t always the case. A strategic reboot after five years of decline directly contributed to Heinz’s impressive Grand Prix win in Creative Effectiveness for its campaign, ‘It Has to be Heinz’, at this year’s Cannes Lions. Comprising three spots – ‘Draw Ketchup,’ ‘Ketchup AI’ and ‘Ketchup Fraud’ – the campaign is a testament to the brand’s ascent and global popularity. Though created by Rethink, Toronto, Passant shares how the 150-year-old legacy brand upholds its status internationally by creating culturally-relevant work while retaining market share particularly in the Middle East and maintaining worldwide recognition. Focusing on growing its emotional connection to consumers, Heinz has cultivated a strong internal team culture across markets allowing innovations backed by insights to thrive, transforming it into one of the world’s most recognisable brands.

Heinz entered the Middle Eastern market in 2001 and is locally headquartered in Dubai, (UAE), operating out of 27 countries and marketing products across 200 territories. Keeping a sense of unity across offices is vital but not always easy. Passant cites flexibility and strong communication as essential to the brand’s creative success. “We’ve worked with our creative teams at FP7McCann for the past five years,” she says. “Our relationship relies on us acting like partners and establishing an open communication policy. We trust each other completely and have fully welcomed them as part of our team.” But this synergy takes time to build and Passant credits the regular meetings the agency has with the brand, whether that’s quarterly or weekly depending on the stage of a project, face-to-face, through texting or calls. Keeping that connection alive is important for building rapport and understanding each other’s different communication styles.

Passant tries to embed a culture of innovation locally and regionally. Setting aside Fridays for creative breakfasts and making efforts to see visiting FP7McCann creatives whenever they’re in town, she aims to break down formalities and invite people to feed back on ideas. “We're always inviting new ideas in,” she says. “They don't have to be stuffy presentations, we just want people to offer up ideas if inspiration strikes.” Besides this non-hierarchical, outside-the-box thinking, Passant also stresses the importance of being intentional with the brand’s creative. “As a market leader in the Middle East, consumers expect us to be innovative.” So actively bearing this in mind and working backwards from what they want to achieve helps. “We start with clarifying our ambitions,” she says. “Currently, we’re striving to be recognised as Marketer of the Year. So we’re working on fostering a culture of creativity across the board, committing to our work output and strengthening relations with our creative partners, offering training opportunities and getting support from our in-house legal team. Without them, we wouldn't be able to take any creative risks.” Since committing to nurturing creativity as a company, even Heinz’s lawyers now understand the value of pushing a culture of alternative creativity.

            

But all of Heinz’s creativity is rooted in data and consumer insights - which is how the brand remains relevant, both locally and culturally. Take the 'Unstainable Thobe' as an example, which saw Heinz create a bespoke stain-resisting material so that Arab men in Dubai wouldn’t be so worried about spoiling their pristine white garments. “It came out of a cultural insight that men in the UAE value their thobe so much that they carry an extra one in their car, in case of emergencies. A lot of real consumer insights do actually inspire our products.” Such is also the case with the Heinz Ketch-Up & Down bottle, a product created in a similar vein. Launched as the world’s first double lid bottle, the product promises to make getting every last drop of ketchup out of bottles, with the double lid option making for easy squeezing. “Most ideas come to life from insights and stories we get from our consumers,” says Passant. “And then obviously we spend a lot of time figuring out the logistics to create opportunities and solutions based on our research findings.”

This approach has led Heinz to create more whimsical and engaging activations, such as the launch of the world's first-ever ketchup insurance policy. The 'Ketchup Insurance' campaign formed as a direct consequence of the brand listening to customers share their messy experiences with Heinz on social media. Transforming these everyday disasters into a playful solution, Heinz allowed enthusiasts in the UAE to claim compensation for ketchup stains and spills. This campaign not only earned a Bronze Lion but also boosted local product sales by 18%, highlighting the strong consumer appetite for interactive campaigns and showcasing the brand's knack for fostering loyalty through creative engagement.

With spend power high in Egypt and as the comedy arm of the Middle East, there’s a lot of possibility for creatives to play with, which explains why Heinz is being more bolshy with its activations. But given its recent Lions' win, this approach is paying off and working at solidifying Heinz’s status as a beloved brand. 

“It's our goal to embed creativity in everything we do,” says Passant. “It's not just about problem solving but looking at business differently. And that’s where we’ve become more intentional – in the way we start and run our meetings, who we bring on and what language we use. It’s a combined internal effort to take informed calculated risks.”