From upside-down bottles and wacky-colored ketchups to unusual store displays and customer-created television commercials, H. J. Heinz is definitely looking for attention. Although Heinz sells 650 million bottles of ketchup each year, the company is anything but complacent about keeping its brands and products in the public eye. One way it does this is by using special in-store displays. To catch the eye of tailgaters browsing in Sam’s Club and other warehouse stores, the company has created cardboard displays shaped like the back of a pickup truck and filled them with grab-and-go picnic packs of Heinz ketchup, mustard, and relish. When Heinz introduces new products and packaging, it gains more shelf space, attracts attention, and highlights each item’s appeal to the senses. Its E-Z-Squirt Ketchup, in vivid, child-friendly colors like green, purple, and blue, was a standout on store shelves. Its organic ketchup comes in an upside-down squeeze bottle with a green lid that sets the product apart while linking it to the category of natural and organic foods. Heinz is also developing a sweeter variety of tomato for future ketchup products. However, what appeals to consumers’ taste buds in one country may not appeal in those in another country. “Consumer tastes are still very local,” observes a Heinz executive, we still like our recipes to be very locally tweaked, even in ketchup.” Chefs, scientists, designers, engineers, and marketers work together to create and taste-test new ketchups and other food products at the Heinz Global Innovation and Quality Center outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The result is untraditional new flavors keyed to specific markets, such as the chili ketchup and sweet onion ketchup recently launched in U.K. stores. The center also hosts a “supermarket” where marketers can observe how consumers behave as they walk down aisles filled with products by Heinz and competing firms. With so many food products vying for attention in advertising media and on supermarket shelves, getting consumers to notice a ketchup ad—let alone act on it—is another key challenge. Heinz communicates through numerous messages running in print and broadcast media as well as online; it also uses in-store and in-restaurant communications to reinforce brand image and loyalty. Heinz has also sponsored Top This TV contests in which consumers submit homemade 30-second commercials featuring Heinz ketchup, which are then posted for viewing and voting. The top prize is $57,000 (a play on “Heinz 57 varieties”) and a spot on national TV for the winning commercial. To encourage participation and wave the brand banner, Heinz promotes these contests on its ketchup labels, on TV, in print, and online. Hundreds of consumers uploaded entries to the first two contests; many of these commercials, including those created by the finalists, are still available online and on Heinz’s topthistv.com website. Media coverage and word-of-mouth buzz spread the contest message quickly and kept people talking about the homemade commercials even after the voting was over and the winners had been announced. Heinz also mounted a contest to gain community attention and involve U.S. students and teachers with the brand and its communications. The Ketchup Creativity contest invited students in grades 1 through 12 to submit artwork for Heinz single-serve packets. From more than 15,000 entries, the judges chose 12 winners to have their artwork displayed on millions of Heinz ketchup packets. Each winner received a $750 scholarship; each winner’s school received $750 worth of Heinz ketchup and $750 worth of art supplies. Student-created artwork made the winning ketchup packets stand out and added to the visual appeal of a product that rarely gets the spotlight to itself. 

 

In terms of exposure, attention, and perception, what are some of the potential disadvantages of Heinz’s Top This TV contests, and do you think that Heinz will gain long-term benefits from holding a contest for students that focused on the visual appeal of designing single-serve ketchup packets? Explain your answer. 

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Answer There are many ways that a business can use to market the products and services it offers in ... View the full answer