Case Study: Heinz Look Familiar?

The Print & Publishing Lions awarded The Cannes Grand Prix went to ‘Look Familiar?’, for Heinz Ketchup, by Rethink, Toronto.

Heinz turned a simple hidden design truth into a global campaign that translated into measurable commercial growth for the brand.

Facing cheaper rivals and shrinking shopping baskets, Heinz skipped the price war and claimed creative ownership of the world’s favourite side dish — by pointing out that every fry box is, in fact, a Heinz logo.

Background

For decades the category ran on one unspoken rule: fries belong with Heinz. But as food costs climbed and shoppers started picking price over brand, that dominance began to wobble — awkward, given fries are among the most-ordered menu items on the planet and not a market Heinz could afford to cede.

Rather than fight on price, the brand went looking for a truth only it could own. It found one hiding in plain sight: the humble fry box is shaped just like the 150-year-old Heinz logo.

That was the unlock. Turn the category’s most ubiquitous asset — the fry box itself — into a media vehicle, and you reinforce the brand at the precise moment of consumption, nudging the consumer mindset from “fries belong with ketchup” to “fries belong with Heinz.”

Idea

Ketchup and fries belong together; the trick was proving fries don’t just need any ketchup — they need this one. So Heinz moved past conventional category thinking and leaned on the visual coincidence it had spotted: the universal silhouette of a fry box echoes that iconic, century-and-a-half-old logo.

It’s the sort of insight that lets a brand sidestep the original business problem entirely. Instead of slugging it out on shelf price, Heinz simply claimed creative ownership of the world’s most popular side — and turned every fry box, everywhere, into free brand reinforcement.

To make the point, the work was built around a single, gloriously simple image: the fry box. A visual-led global poster campaign with no need for translation, the kind of idea that lands the same whether you’re in São Paulo or Shanghai.

Strategy

With inflation steering people toward cheaper alternatives, Heinz used one universal visual to pull them back, then scaled it into a global outdoor campaign that made the link between brand and fries impossible to unsee.

Because the idea needed no words, it travelled. And Heinz placed it where cravings actually strike — contextual OOH at the moment of temptation, including, with a certain cheek, the Shanghai metro station nearest McDonald’s China’s own office. Then, to close the gap between wanting and doing, it teamed up with Uber Eats to drop Heinz Ketchup into every fry order.

The upshot: fry boxes the world over quietly recruited as brand media, working hardest at the exact moment of consumption.

Execution

High-impact posters went up across roadside and metro sites in China, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, the UAE, the USA and the UK — sites chosen for the city centres and transit hubs where on-the-go fry consumption peaks, so the observation met people mid-craving.

The scale showed: 42% reach in the UAE and 33% in Toronto. And to turn looking into ordering, Heinz built a first-of-its-kind Uber Eats integration that added Heinz Ketchup to fry orders — whether or not the restaurant in question actually stocked it. Pairing high-visibility outdoor with a commerce hook drove a +222% surge in US in-platform sales, taking the campaign from broad reach to something you could count.

Outcome

A hidden-in-plain-sight observation became a global platform — led by posters, backed by social, print and video, and sharpened by that disruptive Uber Eats tie-up — landing across 33 markets.

The commercial picture did the talking. In the US, points of distribution rose 9.78%. In Canada, household penetration climbed 3.38% to 10.31%, with gross sales value hitting $18.5m in 2025. The UK posted a 4.37% lift in volume market share, and Mexico grew volume share 3.58% — all of which is a long way of saying: it has to be Heinz.

The campaign earned its keep in the press, too, with 150+ mentions across trade and lifestyle titles Heinz turning up in 86% of headlines, comfortably outrunning its previous “It Has to Be Heinz” outing.