It can be a challenge for brands knowing which celebrity to collaborate with on their marketing campaigns. How do they choose someone that can personify their brand, sell their product and keep it real? Many brands have tried and failed, but Heinz may be on to a winner.
We’ll assume you’ve heard of singer songwriter Ed Sheeran—if you haven’t, we’ll wait while you Google him.
He’s a pretty big deal, right? And what you may or may not know is that he’s a huge Ketchup fan—and we mean massive, he’s literally got it tattooed on his arm. That’s some serious fangirling. So when Ed approached Heinz with an idea for a new advert, it seemed like a match made in heaven.
The cynics among you will question whether he really did approach them, or if this is just a clever and elaborate ploy from Heinz themselves. But we choose to believe that this is legit. Ed isn’t secretive about his love of Ketchup, so why wouldn’t he approach the company behind it if he had a great idea? And a great idea it was.
This advert is a masterclass in marketing: it’s smart, witty and full of heart. It feels like it’s been written by someone who loves the product, not someone that has specific targets to meet. It reminds the audience of what they love about the product—it doesn’t even matter that its star is an actual star.
We don’t know for sure if this is an endorsement deal, but frankly we don’t care. It’s so charmingly put together, and it just works—we think Ed Sheeran and Heinz have nailed influencer marketing. Marketing shouldn’t be about getting the most popular people to flog your product, but about finding people that really love and use your product. Imagine if more brands branched out in this way and offered true fans the chance to advertise the products they loved. What sort of results would we see?
Posted by John on 26 June 2019