Heinz is an iconic brand recognized all over the world. In Latin America, Heinz is competing with the local ketchup brands: preference leaders due to tradition and familiarity. We wanted to lift brand recognition and sales with Acts-not-Ads ideas, and associate Heinz ketchup with burgers. this would position Heinz ketchup in occasions where emerging competitors are beating us across Latam - the birthplace of the campaign.

To approach the burger occasions we decided to connect Heinz with a hot topic: In 2021, 266 million new Latam gamers emerged, making a big opportunity for brands. We discovered that 80% of gamers eat and drink while playing and their favorite food is a burger - source Limelight Networks. But how do they eat while playing? They don't. There is no pause button in online games and if you bite, you die. Players can’t eat their burgers peacefully while eating them. So, we mapped spots within games where players can hide to have a burger, sponsored by Heinz. This idea was good enough so we could team up with a number of different online games: it was simple and smart, and we could use gamers to help us to map other hidden spots and spread Heinz in the game world.

Kraft Heinz, the fifth largest food company globally, has been fighting to gain recognition for its Ketchup in Latin America. The company decided to target young people aged 20 to 29, who were the first digital natives, to create a connection with its brand by associating it with their favorite meal: burgers. However, to win their attention, we decided to explore the gaming industry, which had earned $2.3 billion in revenue in the region during 2021. 80% of gamers eat burgers while playing. But how do they eat while playing? That's where we had the insight: They don't eat. Since there's no pause button in online games, dropping the controller to bite into their burger means becoming an easy target and exposing themselves to dying and losing the game. Gamers preferred to stay hungry than to lose their game. We needed to help gamers eat safely without losing the game.

The global gaming market generated a revenue of $175.8 billion in 2020, a 20% increase compared to 2019. And it's all about the money, because there are a lot of people in there. And where there are people, there are brands. So, how could Heinz, which had never advertised in the gaming universe, enter the game in a different way than all other brands? In an innovative way. But mainly, in a proprietary way, that gamers could identify with. After all, the gaming audience is one of the most closed-off there is, consequently rejecting brands that try to enter their world in an exploitative way, speaking a language that is not usual for them. The shot can backfire for those who invest in e-sports without using the correct tone. That's when Heinz sought a campaign that was truly Act-not-Ad. So, we didn't find an insight, but rather an inherent behavior in all people who play online, which responds to a limitation of the games themselves. After all, online games don't have a pause button. If you want to stop to do anything, you can't. Including eating. So, if gamers play an average of 8 hours a day, when do they eat? It's such a peculiar behavior that it's common to see gamer influencers joking about it, saying that their moms call them to eat and they respond saying that the game doesn't have a pause. And they don't believe them. But Heinz does, and we created a campaign to help these people eat without having to leave the game. You know why? If you leave, you lose your position in the ranking. So, now, with Heinz Hidden Spots, you can hide in dozens of spots scattered throughout the map to eat quickly. And there are many of these spots, because online game maps like Call of Duty have radii of up to 10km. So, if you go to a Hidden Spot, you'll be within a 1km radius, so even if people know it's a Hidden Spot, they still have to find you within a 1km radius. Our campaign was launched on the Caldera map of Call of Duty, in partnership with them, which made the campaign even more famous, as the map was highly anticipated by the gaming community.

We really turned up the heat and got young people aged 20 to 30 engaged and excited about our brand! We made history with our record-breaking interactions with gamers, reaching a whopping 20 million people! And the numbers don't stop there, with over 147,000 engagements and 550 million global impressions.

Our live streams had more than 13 million views, and we even got 681 mentions of Heinz Hidden Spots! Plus, the cherry on top? We received an overall 89% positive feedback on Heinz products and brand. We certainly combined hunger with the desire to sell and the results speak for themselves! During the campaign period, we achieved a 56% increase in consideration of consuming Heinz, with a maximum peak of interest at 100 points in "Heinz + burger." And let's not forget the icing on the cake: we gained a 45% growth in overall sales of Heinz's portfolio.