Historically, food and snacking consumption levels increase during a World Cup, sometimes by as much as 5%, especially in host nations (Source: Retail Week). And it’s the brands that are most aligned with the event that reap the rewards as sponsorships can increase purchase intent for the sponsor by 10% (Source: Nielsen Sports). The challenge for Heinz Arabia was to protect itself from those competitors who were official partners of the World Cup and had the budgets to activate big campaigns. However, in the context of World Cup marketing budgets, we were the San Marino of international football, so we had to change the way we approached the brief. We needed a flash of brilliance: we needed an idea that would nutmeg FIFA and blindside officials.

How could we align Heinz Arabia with the spectacle of the World Cup without buying costly media? This was the question we asked ourselves over and over, again and again. Then, in a moment of Maradona-like genius, we made a breakthrough: brands have been gatecrashing sporting events since forever without arising suspicion or scrutiny…they’ve been hiding in plain sight on the clothes people wear. Who’s going to stop you wearing Nikes at an adidas sponsored event or Raybans at a Revo one? Or, for that matter, a Heinz t-shirt at the World Cup? This was our “Hand of God” moment. This was the way we could get Heinz into the World Cup.

Instead of hijacking the event, we Heinzjacked it. The brand couldn’t be there, but someone called Heinz could. So that’s what we did. We found our namesake, Thomas Heinz from Hamburg, who would engage with fans and create world cup content for the brand in exchange for free flights and tickets to the event. He became a human billboard that wore a Heinz branded-QR code enabled t-shirt that incentivized other fans to interact, engage and find him in a kind of “Where’s Wally” style competition. There was also dancing. And it only cost us $10,000.