Mr. Ridiculously Good
How a tomato sauce transformed a British literary icon forever
Is That Heinz?
A clever solution to call out imposter ketchups shows there's only one authentic Heinz
- Office
- Turkey
- Client
- Heinz
Our mission to stop ketchup fraud in its tracks.
Kraft Heinz faced a unique problem. Some restaurants, when they run out of Heinz, fill the empty bottles with imitation ketchup. To call out imposters, VML came up with a clever solution for customers to check they’re being served authentic Heinz Ketchup. Identifying the exact shade of Pantone Red that’s unmistakably Heinz, we added it to the label and launched an Instagram filter for verification – so if the label doesn’t match the sauce in the bottle, it's not original Heinz. Fans agree and the campaign was named one of AdAge’s "Top 5 Campaigns You Need to Know About Right Now" in 2023.
Our goal was to put an end to this so called ketchup fraud and create an innovative solution to help customers identify whether they were being served real Heinz or an imposter ketchup.
Heinz is the foodies choice of ketchup in Turkey, and a lot of small Turkish street food restaurants desperate to attract and please customers refill their empty Heinz bottles with lesser quality ketchup that's not Heinz.
We wanted to remind food lovers that there's only one true Heinz Tomato Ketchup.
Heinz Tomato Ketchup's consistent red color is universal and instantly recognizable. For Heinz fans everywhere, there's no disputing it's Heinz the moment they see it.
We identified the exact red color of Heinz Tomato Ketchup using the world's universal Pantone color scale and simply added this Pantone Red stripe to the Heinz Tomato Ketchup label. When comparing ketchup inside the bottle against the label's Pantone Red edge color, there's no mistaking whether the ketchup in the bottle is real Heinz or imposter ketchup.
Immediately after launch, Heinz fans everywhere promoted our new label with 100k organic shares, 800k likes and over 2k X posts (Tweets). Orders of new Heinz bottles soared and proudly took their place at meals and tables across Turkey.
