Heinz pits red vs brown in new campaign to raise awareness of its iconic table sauces
To combat a fall in both ketchup and brown sauce sales, Heinz is utilising its Tomato Ketchup and HP Sauce brands for a new campaign, which pits the two condiments up against one another.
Kicking off this week, the Red vs Brown campaign will encourage consumers to place their votes online as Heinz aims to spread awareness of the two iconic table sauces.
The multimedia campaign will be promoted heavily through Facebook, Twitter and mainstream radio stations while a live online map will track which regions prefer red or brown. Participants will also be entered into a prize draw.
The campaign will utilise in-store activation points at supermarkets including Morrisons, which will host 3D toby boards, front of store displays and point of sale display material to promote the campaign and drive visits to its website.
“It has long been a debate at the dinner table but now, we’re set to find out who really comes out on top in the battle of red vs brown,” said Shane Shortman, senior brand manager at HP Sauce. “We’re calling on consumers from across the county to log on to RedVsBrown.co.uk to have their say.”
The campaign looks like a timely opportunity to raise brand awareness for Heinz. Over the last year its brand index rating, which averages out consumer’ perception of quality, value and reputation, has fallen 4 percentage points to 41.2, according to YouGov’s Brand Index.
Over the same period, HP Sauce, meanwhile, has also seen a fall in its index score by 1.5 percentage points. However, despite the respective falls, the Heinz and HP brands remain 1st and 4th when it comes to the 30 biggest dried ambient food brands.
Last year, sales of the fry up favourite HP Sauce plummeted 19%, according to Mintel, while total sales of ketchup fell 3% from £178 million to £173 million.
