INVISIBLE BOTTLE

HEINZ TOMATO KETCHUP

My idea was that Heinz Tomato Ketchup is so iconic that even if you can’t see the bottle, you still know it’s Heinz. Viewers love getting an idea without it being explained, and here they proved to themselves that it has to be Heinz. Directed by Dougal Wilson.

We later used the endline across a brand campaign and I’m delighted to see that ‘It Has To Be’ is now the global platform.

I’m also chuffed when people point out the similarity between this and the Heinz campaign Don Draper created on Mad Men a couple of years later.

That was then made for real by Heinz: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2017/mar/14/sauce-material-how-mad-men-wrote-the-new-heinz-ads

Creatives: Martin Loraine & Steve Jones

CDs: Martin Loraine & Steve Jones

CREATING THE ‘IT HAS TO BE’ CAMPAIGN

I wrote ‘It Has to Be’ while I was CD of Heinz at AMV, from 2008 to 2012, and I’m happy to see it’s now the global platform.

The business problem was that people saw Heinz as old-fashioned, and in the Credit crunch, struggled to justify the premium, when own-brand was seen as satisfactory.

The solution was to prompt them of a belief they already had, deep down – of the trust and warmth they had for Heinz, from years of good experiences, an emotional and rational belief that Heinz is better than own-brand.

We triggered this by treating Heinz product as icons, but in a believable way. ‘It Has to Be’ launched with the ‘Invisible Bottle’ Ketchup commercial, in which viewers proved to themselves that ‘it has to be’ Heinz, by knowing instantly what the product was, without seeing it.

We continued the ‘It Has to Be’ idea across a brand campaign and product-specific work for Salad Cream, Beans, and Soups.

To make the brand feel more contemporary, executions surprised the audience, rejecting traditional narratives in favour of invisible products, an ad set totally in a fridge, a soundtrack of people blowing soup, and an ad with two men kissing which created headlines worldwide.

Creative Circle

GOLD

INVISIBLE FOOD

HEINZ

‘The Invisible Bottle’ commercial was a big success for Heinz and AMV. When the brief returned to the department a couple of years later, a lot of great scripts were presented, but the clients didn’t like anything. After a few weeks, they told us that what they really wanted was ‘Invisible Bottle 2’.

Something had to be invisible and it couldn’t be the bottle again. I wrote to the truism that some foods - like chips, burgers, sausages, and fish fingers - need Heinz Ketchup to bring them properly to life. So they became the objects that only appears when Heinz is added. Directed by Dom & Nic.