THE CHALLENGE

Since its start in 1869, Heinz has been on a mission to make the world a more flavorful place. That is especially true when people are enjoying French fries with Heinz ketchup. However, social media chatter raised an unsettling issue for the Heinz team: people get frustrated by not being able to get enough ketchup on their fries.

After digging a little deeper via a social media survey, the numbers backed the thesis up – nine out of ten people worldwide won’t eat fries without a dip, and 84% of sauce super fans feel frustrated that they can’t get a good portion on a potato chip. Hence, Africa unveiled the “friestration,” the frustration of not being able to get a decent ketchup dollop on a single fry.

Heinz set out to ease this pain, relying on design and creativity to improve the ketchup-fries UX.

THE SOLUTION

Heinz and Africa looked for a solution that enabled each consumer to end their “friestration” by producing their own Spoon Friez. The focus was not on sales, but on keeping the brand close and relevant to ketchup consumers.

Nonetheless, the human truth behind Heinz Spoon Friez made the product sell out. People on social media started sharing their attempts of making a homemade version of the spoon-shaped fries, to get more ketchup on their fries.

The campaign was executed in 13 markets: United States, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, France, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, and Japan.

Spoon Friez content gathered 653 million impressions across channels; 546 million earned media impressions; 8.1 million organic views on TikTok; and a 30% increase in the number of Heinz followers on social media.