Episode 51 - Heinz Ad Reviewed by Superscript, Contagious, Peppiatt & Williams
This summer, Heinz Ketchup is reminding us of its trademark slow pour... by trying to reward consumers for being stuck in traffic! The latest Heinz ad, chosen by our partners Contagious, is bringing together Waze and Burger King to make light of traffic bottlenecks, but does it have a satisfying finish or does it get stuck in a brand detour?
Our guests Mai Fenton from Superscript, Katrina Dodd from Contagious and Tim Peppiatt of Peppiatt & Williams join us to debate whether this ad hits the spot.
Watch the full episode and see what they thought!
Transcription of audio file
This automated transcription gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:08
Hello, and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads and discuss what's good and bad about them. We are brought to you once again by Contagious. They have chosen this week's ad, so thanks so much for that, guys. But before we get to the ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Mai Fenton 0:32
Hi, I'm Mai Fenton. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer at Superscript.
Katrina Dodd 0:36
Hi, I'm Katrina Dodd. I'm Editor at Large at Contagious.
Tim Peppiatt 0:39
Hi, I'm Tim Peppiatt. I was at GSK, and now, I'm at Peppiatt & Williams as Founder.
Tom Ollerton 0:45
Fantastic. Thanks so much for joining us today. Let's see this week's ad.
I've been stuck in traffic for the last two hours.
Unknown Speaker 1:11
What should take me five minutes takes me about 30.
Tom Ollerton 1:49
So, Katrina... What do you think of that the first time you saw that campaign?
Katrina Dodd 1:54
It's a cute idea. It's interesting. And yeah, it got my attention.
Mai Fenton 1:59
It is attention grabbing. It got my interest. It builds on a real universal pain point, I think, you know, like the, the frustration of being stuck in traffic. So, overall, it felt to me a bit like it was kind of designed to win some award for best use of GPS tech or something like that. But you know, there's something in it. It's definitely attention grabbing. It's quite, you know, it is, it is quite a beat the music, everything makes you feel, it makes, it fun.
Tim Peppiatt 2:24
My initial thought when I watched it was, why would the brand associate with negative connotations? You know, sticking in traffic makes me bloody cross. It's slow, like something other, something that's excellent and slow, not something that's irritating and slow. So for me, it did have a bit of an irritation factor. I'm not a great lover of cheap production values. And I think using screen, you know, screens, and perhaps I'm showing my age there is, is a little bit clunky. I didn't really get it, I thought it was too long.
Katrina Dodd 3:00
But it is trying quite clearly, I think to make something interesting out of, one of the distinctive brand assets of Heinz ketchup, which is the famous slow pour. I guess, I guess the, the question becomes whether they did that with enough dexterity and immediacy to make it really stick.
Tim Peppiatt 3:20
Looking at the consumer, which, you know, I am partly, but my son is, is a greater consumer of it. I don't think he would, I don't think that make him, if he is indeed the target audience, I'm not sure he, he'd get that if it's trying to be fun, it wouldn't be fun enough for him.
Tom Ollerton 3:36
What would have made this simpler? What would have made a stronger link between that brand truth about being a slow pour and slow driving?
Katrina Dodd 3:43
To make the campaign in some way better, I think you're looking to create something that feels a bit more immediately gettable, somehow. Whether it's being a bit more upfront about, "Do this, and you'll get a free impossible Whopper." You know, that, that gets people's attention right off the bat. But I think by, by embedding the, the promotion within the Waze app and relying on a lot of people to discover it while they're driving ticked off at the situation they're in. It is, it is asking quite a lot of people but then it does pay off quite handsomely if you're getting a free what? $7 burger.
Tim Peppiatt 4:22
I didn't get that at all. You know, I didn't get the journey. If you're going to take me on a journey, you know, explain it more succinctly.
Mai Fenton 4:30
One of the things I was going to say around particular improvement is that I know we're not talking specifically about execution, but it feels a little bit like this Tiktok frames, you know, let's calm them in because we probably have a campaign in social rallying and let's pull that together and repurpose. It felt a little bit like an afterthought. This particular sort of landscape video, but it's not straightforward. I think, I think the narrative is a little bit too complicated. I'm not sure what I'm getting, getting in. If it's, if it's advertised on the Waze app and you get a coupon you know, it's... It's not, it's not like a instant gratification that is easy to get to, to go through all the hassle of downloading the app and getting the exact right speed as well, because if you're not point, not .42, apparently you don't get the burger, right?
Tim Peppiatt 5:11
You can make things cool. I mean, remember the old Hamlet ad? That was really slow and the benefit at the end was really clear. That was fast, slow, and you weren't quite sure where you were going. Everyone wants to lead with a benefit or old fashioned advertising as you lead with a benefit. But I think there was a good case to do that here. I mean, it's very cool opening shot, and then it got disappointing for me after that, I didn't quite know where I was going.
Katrina Dodd 5:36
Yeah, I think maybe, maybe part of the issue is that... It's not an ad in the traditional sense, it's, it's almost like a teaser for a campaign. And because of that, it doesn't have that immediate, okay, I get what's going on here factor or the, or the seduction of a Hamlet ad, for example, where you get the kind of, the sort of satisfying payoff at the end. This is much more like a Burger King Whopper Detour campaign where it's all about driving downloads of the Burger King app, in order to generate future sales and deliveries through that app. It's just the, I guess, the relationship between what they're trying to do here and the payoff for the brand is actually a bit less clear, because this is a collaboration with Waze which people will already to a large extent have on their phone. And the tie in with Burger King is a bit kind of nebulous, the relationship between those two brands is less clear. So it's kind of, it feels a bit like a less concise and win me over version of corporate detour to me.
Mai Fenton 6:47
It seems a bit like it's been one of these, you know, fancy modern media partnerships. I mean, when you think about the benefits made, Waze should get more your app downloads, you know, a Burger King, probably, presumably contributed to the media costs, you know, they get like a good share of mind in this ad, etc. So, I'm wondering how that's come together, to be honest, whether it was like a brand exercise by Heinz or... 'Cause I think Waze and Burger King did a similar activity in Mexico, right? Where if you're stuck in traffic, Burger King, you can order on your phone through your Waze app, and then Burger King delivers to your car when you're in the middle of the traffic jam. And you see that, that's smart, I think. You know, promoting their, their Burger King delivery service. It's straight to your car. It's straightforward. I think, ultimately, I'm under the impression, the objective is really, top-of-mind awareness and saliency, right? I don't suppose they're going to sell that many more, a much more Heinz ketchup off the back of it. Yeah, it's in the business of getting these people's attention, it probably has done a decent job at that, you know, probably part of the job anyway. I think they could have really simplified the whole sort of communication messaging around that and the whole mechanic.
Katrina Dodd 7:57
It's an interesting challenge that Heinz has, because it's, you know, it's such a clear market leader in that particular category. So, I guess the, the job that the agency always has to do is remind people how big and famous Heinz is and find interesting ways to keep refreshing and reinforcing the associations they have in their head with that brand. The jigsaw puzzle that they created at the start of the lockdown, where all the pieces, all 1000 of them were the same deep, rich red ketchup color. You still had to piece the puzzle together, giving you the impression of the kind of, the slowness of Heinz. So, they, they're building and refreshing memory structures about the qualities of the ketchup here. Refreshing their brand assets, I think, if you will. I just wonder if it's all a bit much to kind of think about intellectually, when you should just often be able to get advertising, you know,
Tim Peppiatt 8:50
Yeah. And I think complexity makes you, distracts you from that. I mean, if you look at I've just read a part of Guinness's journey, and how year after year, they re-establish and they've had some terribly troubled times. But you can see a constant theme through that advertiser where they're reinforcing the brand. I'm not sure that that film for me reinforced how gorgeous and you know, apart from the opening sequence, how gorgeous and slow and luxury Heinz was. I think it had any irritation factor.
Tom Ollerton 9:24
So, guys, we need to, we need to wrap this up. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you to vote. I'll give it a score out of five by raising your hand. On a count of three, can you give it a score? One, two, three... A three, a three, and a two. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks for Contagious for partnering with us again, and we will see you all next week.
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