To officially sponsor the World Cup would cost anywhere between $10m to $25m (Source: Nasdaq). Heinz didn’t have the budget to get involved, officially, but with consumer spend on food projected to increase by 80% during the event it couldn’t afford to not be (Source: Zawya). We needed a flash of brilliance to blindside FIFA in a way that was legal yet disruptive enough to capture the attention of football fans both at the World Cup premises and online.

We found our namesake, Thomas Heinz from Hamburg. He would engage with fans and create world cup content for the brand in exchange for free flights and tickets to the matches.

He became a human billboard that proudly displayed his name, Heinz, next to a huge QR-code that incentivized other fans to interact, engage and find him in a kind of “Where’s Wally” style competition that lived under the hashtag #FindHeinz in and around the World Cup premises in Doha, Qatar.