Last month, Heinz found itself in a pickle after it suffered a series of marketing faux pas, including tone-deaf adverts and campaign partnership controversies.
In a space of a week, the baked beans and tomato ketchup producer was accused of racism twice; firstly over its tube advert depiction of a fatherless black family at a wedding party, and secondly for seemingly creating a racist minstrel-esque blackface character.
Just days later, Heinz once again was forced to pull social media content on its limited edition Secret Sauce product after a collaborating influencer, Yung Filly, was arrested in Australia over sexual assault charges.
Yet Heinz is not the only brand in the grocery industry in recent years to face a backlash following marketing missteps with Bud-Light facing allegations of transphobia following its response to its collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney and Innocent Smoothie facing boycott calls after publishing a social media campaign in support of divisive trans youth charity Mermaids.
We sat down with creative agency Elvis managing partner, strategy Camilla Yates to find out what changes Heinz needs to bring in to address is marketing blunders and how it can rethink its future strategies.
Photo: Elvis managing partner of strategy Camilla Yates
“Heinz’s recent serious missteps demonstrate the vital importance of ensuring that diverse viewpoints are part of the whole creative process. Inclusive cultures that promote equity and celebrate diversity are not just a tick box within a purpose or ESG strategy: they have a direct impact on a brand’s value.
When the industry discusses this issue, the spotlight is often on creative teams and the fact that even today, the majority of creative departments are still dominated by white middle class men.
Agencies and marketers must ensure that diversity and inclusion is not just a performative hire of a diverse creative team, but a way of thinking that is inherent to the whole culture of the organisation. An inclusive approach to due diligence when selecting influencers and a more diverse team of approvers is much more likely to have flagged the risks associated with partnering with problematic talent.
As an agency committed to not only building a culture of inclusivity but also progressing the view of DE&I in the industry, we have created a number of campaigns that move the conversation forward.
In 2021, our ad for Creme Egg started a conversation about homophobia in advertising, when homophobic media zoned in on just one of a number of inclusive vignettes used in the creative in order to attack the brand. While the outcome was ultimately positive for both brand equity and sales, this unexpected reaction catalysed the agency to galvanise its stance on inclusive advertising.
Key elements of this strategy, that Heinz and other brands could apply include:
Engage with DEI communities/partners early on
Consult members of diverse communities during the creative development process, and ensure that teams leverage existing DEI partnerships and diverse research groups in order to ensure that insights are gathered from a broad audience, right from the beginning.
Re-evaluate and adapt standard brand response procedures
Ensure that diverse perspective and proper due diligence is done around the brand’s response management process across owned and non-owned social channels, reviewing standard channel practice, agreeing principles around when and when not to use official statements, and when to engage in order to facilitate safe spaces.
Create an escalation framework
Perform a pre-flight evaluation of all scenarios, all talent, all partnerships, time of year live and links to previous negative press. Understanding how content could be viewed from the perspectives of diverse communities is a highly important input into scenario planning.
Recognise that you have a duty of care to the talent in your ad
Put a duty of care framework in place that considers a number of key areas, from logistical necessities like ensuring the agency has talent’s emergency details, to ensuring they have made talent aware of support available to them and understanding how comfortable they feel with any attention, along with allocating budget for media training and press requests.”