The two leading platforms for Heinz Tomato Ketchup are the superiority of their product over the competition and the fact that it's made using only ingredients of natural origin. While traditional communication focuses on shoppers – 30+ consumers – they also engage with Gen Z in other media to build awareness. That way, Halloween was presented as the perfect opportunity to unite those two platforms in a youthful, fun, and unique way.

We were challenged to create a campaign that spoke to Gen Z based on a yearly pop culture event, highlighting that Heinz Tomato Ketchup makes a better product than other brands by using the best ingredients.

Spooky Ingredients is a short horror animated film created by Heinz and directed by one of Brazil's most prominent young artists, starring the scariest ingredients used by their competitors to make ketchup.

The film premiered on Halloween night to remind consumers of the horrors of eating other ketchup brands and of the strangest stuff they put in their product as a counterpoint to the ingredients used to make Heinz Tomato Ketchup – all of which are of natural origin. That way, we highlighted that other brands still use ingredients that can be harmful to consumers' health.

Beautifully crafted 2D animated characters, Halloween's familiar strangeness, humour, and jump scares were used in this thriller to engage with viewers in theatres and on Instagram.

And to reach a wider audience, direct mail kits with posters, horror masks, soda cups, and popcorn buckets were sent to Gen Z movie influencers.

First, we partnered with a young artist with a unique tracing style who had already worked on projects focused on young adults. Then, we had him craft the movie characters based on the chemical and physical descriptions of the ingredients used by Heinz competitors.

To get to the final result in each of those characters, we searched for artificial and harmful ingredients on Heinz's ketchup competition labels. We were inspired by the worst names, bringing their chemical and physical characteristics to life in animation.

After that, we worked together to come up with a script while he created the scenes, elements, horror soundtrack, and ambience of the film, posting it on Instagram and screening it in movie theatres on Halloween night right before the biggest horror blockbusters, which lasted for the entire week.

To broaden the audience, we picked ten of the most iconic scenes from the film and crafted posters with them, which were used in the movie theatres and as part of the direct mail kit sent to influencers alongside soda cups, popcorn buckets, and horror masks.

Brazil has its folklore, with local indigenous myths, fables, and stories. But in recent years, Halloween has been gaining traction in the country and becoming part of the local culture. Candy brands have been seeing an increase in sales by up to 117% during this period, and the search for costumes peaks at over 492% compared to the rest of the year in some e-commerce. That shows how much and how quickly Halloween is being absorbed into Brazilian culture and why it's becoming such a relevant date in most brands' communications plans.