Heinz takes out full page ad to apologise to UK market for pasta sauce delay

Heinz, a world leader in tomato products and sauces, has gone all out with an apology for taking 150 years to launch a new range of pasta sauces.  The campaign saw a full-page ad taken out in The Guardian, apologising to the British public and Heinz’ founder, Henry Heinz, for not creating the pasta sauce they deserve – until now.

In the long-form copy, the brand explains how it has created “probably the best pasta sauce you’ve ever tasted”, promising consumers that it was worth the wait, “because nothing so ridiculously good, has come so ridiculously late”.  

Caio Fontenele, new ventures director at Kraft-Heinz said the launch of the new Heinz pasta sauce range is an important step in the strategy to expand the brand into new categories. “Despite our extensive agriculture heritage and tomato expertise, this is the first Heinz pasta sauce launched in the UK —a market where Heinz is annually ranked amongst the most loved food brands. It was natural to have launched a pasta sauce, but we didn’t. Yes, we are ridiculously late,” he shared.

Fontenele added that Wunderman Thompson’s collaboration and fresh eyes on the brand resulted in a powerful and simple campaign that points up the iconicity of Heinz in a rejuvenated way without trying too hard.

Paco Badia, executive creative director at Wunderman Thompson Spain, the creative agency behind the campaign said: “Consumers love it when a love brand like Heinz has the ability to laugh at itself. Before this, the brand had never released a range of pasta sauces in the UK, despite the fact that spaghetti Bolognese is one of the most popular dishes in the world and the third most-consumed dish in the UK. It was the perfect excuse for us to play up the brand’s tomato credentials with the launch, including how they produce their own tomato seeds, in the most Heinz-way possible, with a subtle and intelligent sense of humour.”

The campaign is supported by digital, social media, and out-of-home assets, including a billboard in Leicester Square which features the seven sauces in the range and copy that says: “150 years late. 7 ways to apologise”.

OOH assets have been produced by Kiwi Bravo with animations by Gimmewings. The campaign also includes 30” TVCs and 20” videos focusing on the products, which were produced by Oxígeno Productions, directed by Jorge Palomar Stasny and featuring animation by Gimmewings Studio. Media planning and buying was handled by Carat UK.

Last year, Kraft Heinz Company agreed to also pay US$62 million for failing to design and maintain effective internal accounting controls for its procurement division between the last quarter of 2015 to the end of 2018. This led to the company incorrectly claiming cost savings of US$280 million during the period, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said. Kraft Heinz neither admitted nor denied SEC's findings, the commission said.

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