Heinz Ketchup Puzzle
Kraft Heinz
Issue 55 | June 2020
Agency
Rethink
Creative Team
Chief Creative Offcer Aaron Starkman Creative Director Mike Dubrick Art Director Zachary Bautista Writer Geoff Baillie
Production Team
Designer Erin Maguire Producers Anna Tricini, Todd Harrison Print Producer Narine Artinian
Other Credits
Account Team Amy Greenspoon, Kai de Bryun Kops, Allie Kennedy Strategist Julian Morgan Clients Head of Brand Build Communications Nina Patel Senior Brand Manager Brian Neumann
Date
May 2020
Background
Heinz is known for its iconic slow-pouring ketchup. In a period when everyone had a little more time on their hands and puzzle popularity skyrocketed, the brand wondered if it could help by connecting the two. And if the idea could be fun as well as contextually relevant, so much the better.
Idea
The brand created a jigsaw puzzle whose 570 pieces are all an identical shade of red.
Known for being slow-pouring, the slow all-red puzzle was relevant to both the brand and the situation at the time.
The puzzles were given away in 17 countries. In Canada, to win one consumers were directed to @Heinz_CA on Instagram to comment on who they’d like to finish the puzzle with.
Results
Originally the idea was to give away 57 of the puzzles in the social media contest but there was such overwhelming demand Heinz then sold them online for $24.99, all the money going to food banks in Canada.
Our Thoughts
You know you’ve got a brilliant idea on your hands when it morphs from being a media stunt into a product people will pay hard cash for. You also know it’s brilliant when other brands started copying you. McDonald’s Belgium came up with a 500-piece puzzle, trumped by Arizona Iced Tea’s 1000-piece monster. Sales of jigsaw puzzles are said to have tripled in the USA. In the UK, John Lewis reports sales of LEGO up a similar amount as parents try to get kids to look at something other than a screen.