A mission to stop ketchup fraud in its tracks

Kraft Heinz faced a unique problem. Some restaurants, when they run out of Heinz, fill the empty bottles with imitation ketchup. To call out imposters, Wunderman Thompson Turkey came up with a clever solution for customers to check if they’re being served authentic Heinz Ketchup. Identifying the exact shade of Pantone red that’s unmistakably Heinz, we added it to the label and launched an Instagram filter for verification – so if the label doesn’t match the sauce in the bottle, it's not original Heinz. Fans agree and the campaign was named one of AdAge’s ‘Top 5 Campaigns You Need to Know About Right Now’.

Casestudy isthatheinz
Our goal was to put an end to this so called ‘ketchup fraud’ and create an innovative solution to help customers identify whether they were using the real deal or an imposter.

Onur Kutluer

Creative Director, Wunderman Thompson Turkey

Heinz is a foodies choice in Turkey and a lot of small Turkish street food restaurants desperate to please their customers refill their empty Heinz bottles with lesser quality ketchup that's not Heinz in an attempt to attract customers.

We wanted to remind all food lovers that there's only one true Heinz Tomato Ketchup.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup's consistent red color is universal and instantly recognizable. For Heinz fans everywhere, there's no disputing it's Heinz the moment they see it.

We identified the exact red color of Heinz Tomato Ketchup with the world's universal Pantone color scale and simply added a stripe to match it around the Heinz Tomato Ketchup label. Now when comparing ketchup inside the bottle against the label's edge color, there can be no mistaking whether the ketchup in the bottle is authentic Heinz or fake.

Immediately after launch, Heinz fans everywhere promoted our new label with 100K organic shares, 800K likes and 2K+ tweets. Orders of new Heinz bottles soared and proudly took their place at meals and on tables across Turkey.

Is that heinz main visual

Please provide your contact information to continue.

Before submitting your information, please read our Privacy Policy as it contains detailed information on the processing of your personal data and how we use it.