For Heinz fans, if it’s grilled food without Heinz, it's a travesty worth protesting.

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So we protested the most famous summer grilling institution in America that doesn’t feature any Heinz: the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. There, hot dogs are disgustingly dunked in water and swallowed whole. As a champion of eating hot dogs the right way (with love, respect, and Heinz condiments), we had to do something about the gross mistreatment of hundreds of hot dogs.

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Kickstarting the movement
To kick off the movement, we enlisted Andrew Rousso to play an irrational hot dog activist, AKA Francis Weiner, to lead the movement, “Condiments For a Better Hot Dog”. Andrew took over the Heinz TikTok channel and ignited both his and the Heinz fanbase, leaning into two of TikTok’s core pillars, Community & Entertainment, for the months of June and July.

 

Protesting the contest
On July 4th, we rallied New Yorkers in Coney Island to stand against the mistreatment of hot dogs during the contest with an airplane flyover along the beach and boardwalk. The movement was given legitimacy with cardboard signs, pamphlets and swag. 

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Sustaining the movement
With the momentum we built on the 4th of July we recruited the legend Takeru Kobayashi, The Godfather of Competitive Eating and 6 time champion of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Kobayashi publicly demanded that hot dogs be treated with respect, and took an oath to only eat hot dogs with Heinz – swearing off the competition altogether. In partnership with Heinz, Kobayashi then offered losing contestants $10,000 to simply eat a hot dog with Heinz condiments on camera, matching the Nathan’s prize money 100%.

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Through this campaign, we were able to activate people everywhere to remind them that if it’s hot dogs, it has to be Heinz.

 

RESULTS:

• 922,121 SOCIAL IMPRESSIONS

• 5X ENGAGEMENT ABOVE BENCHMARK ON INSTAGRAM

• 47X VCR ABOVE BENCHMARK ON TIKTOK