Ketchup Fraud – Heinz: When Being Too Iconic Becomes a Problem 🍿🤬
What do you do when even your competitors use your bottle to sell their product? If you’re Heinz, you call it out—loudly, cleverly, and with a wink. Enter Ketchup Fraud, a spicy, strategic campaign that turned brand impersonation into a cultural moment.
https://www.heinz.com/ketchupfraud
The Red Sauce That Can’t Be Faked 🪶
Coca-Cola Australia’s Share a Coke campaign did more than slap names on cans. It invited people to find themselves, tag their friends, and spark a wave of joyful, social enHeinz has long been the ketchup. So iconic that restaurants will often reuse its signature bottle, filling it with cheaper substitutes. You think you’re getting Heinz? Think again. That realisation sparked the campaign.
Created by Rethink Toronto, Ketchup Fraud launched with gritty, undercover-style visuals showing workers sneakily refilling Heinz bottles with unbranded ketchup.
It wasn’t a stunt. It was a truth too many had ignored and Heinz finally said it out loud.
A Campaign That Feels Like a Documentary 🎥
The campaign didn’t just show the fraud. It invited people to name and shame the guilty restaurants. On social, Heinz encouraged users to DM them spots where this happened.
In return? Those places might receive a pallet of the real thing.
The work spanned print, social, OOH, even app redesigns. The iconic bottle took a backseat in the visuals. Sometimes you barely saw it. And yet, you knew it was Heinz. That’s what brand equity looks like.
Built to Stir Culture, Not Just Sales ✌️
Heinz didn’t run this campaign to say, “Buy our ketchup.” They said: “This brand means something. And it matters that it’s the real deal.”
The team leaned into humour, kept it light, but hit where it hurts. In a cost-of-living crisis, it could’ve backfired. Instead, it rallied public love and started real conversations about value and trust. They nailed the tone: cheeky, not shaming.
- 92% positive sentiment
- 8% sales increase YOY
- 33 new restaurants switched to Heinz
- 128x higher engagement than benchmarks
https://www.rethinkideas.com/work/ketchup-fraud
It Has to Be Heinz. Literally. ❌🍿
The campaign perfectly paid off Heinz’s line: It has to be Heinz. Because if it didn’t matter, restaurants wouldn’t fake it.
They didn’t need influencers or flashy tech. Just a bold truth, killer visuals, and the bravery to call out an industry secret. The idea was universal enough to work globally, and specific enough to feel real.
This wasn’t ketchup marketing. This was cultural truth marketing.
Gut First, Metrics Second đź“Š
As Mike Dubrick from Rethink said, the idea made them feel something. That was the sign. If it didn’t evoke emotion, it wasn’t worth doing. And Megan Lang at Heinz? She could’ve said no. But she trusted her gut. The result: a campaign that not only won Cannes Gold, D&AD Graphite, and the internet, but helped Heinz defend its crown in a world of cheap knockoffs.
Ketchup Fraud was more than a campaign. It was a flex. And it worked.
https://jai-un-pote-dans-la.com/fraude-ketchup-restauration-campagne-heinz/