Cannes Lions 2024: Creative Effectiveness Lions /

Heinz has won the Grand Prix in Creative Effectiveness at Cannes Lions for a five-year collection of work under the It has to be Heinz platform, created by Rethink, Toronto.

After five years of decline Heinz had to rethink its advertising approach, but it had to do so with something that upheld its iconic status as a 150-year-old brand. Its strategy was to grow the emotional connection it has with its consumers by creating culturally relevant brand experiences that speak to its status as one of the world’s most recognisable brands.

Speaking to Contagious in June 2023 about Heinz’s turnaround, Mike Dubrick, CCO at Rethink, Toronto said: ‘If you don’t act like an icon, then that status slowly erodes over time.’ On how the brand has sparked with culture so well, he noted: ‘You see lots of other brands activating just around the cultural part, but we often ask ourselves, “Does Heinz have the authority or authenticity to say this?” If so, that’s where the brand truth and the cultural tension come together – where it totally makes sense for Heinz.’

The It Has to be Heinz campaigns included releasing a 570 piece puzzle all in Heinz red when the world paused for Covid-19; ramping up Americans to petition for the number of hotdog buns in packs to be the same as the number of hot dog sausages in a jar; launching a ketchup fraud hunt to get its fans to call out restaurants who refill Heinz bottles with fake ketchup, and launching a special edition condiment to align with a viral tweet about Taylor Swift.

The platform has helped Heinz to achieve a 12% global ketchup sales growth year on year since 2019 and steal 3.2 share points back from its competition. In 2023 Heinz became one of only 4% of brands to achieve Kantar’s ‘Icon’ status.

The jury established a framework for judging the category: audacity and ambition, bravery, causality of effectiveness and direction (the extent to which a campaign could direct the industry in the future).

Jury president Harjot Singh, global chief strategy officer, McCann and McCann Worldgroup, said: ‘The brand platform is a celebration of originality. In real time they responded to everything that’s going on in culture. It took such a kaleidoscopic range of conversations that transcend culture and had a very coherent response to it each and every time, being able to prove that actually, it has a real commercial impact on the business.’

The category received an increased number of entries this year, a total of 306 campaigns from 36 countries. 

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