đ How Heinz Tapped Into China's Sporting Moment
Without spending a dime on sponsorship fees
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As we head into the final stretch of 2025, major sporting events are capturing attention around the world.
Right now, the National Games in China are taking place ⊠drawing nationwide attention from November 9 to 21.
For many brands, these kinds of events are golden opportunities to connect with audiences when engagement is already sky-high.
And that brings us to the Heinz ad:
The ad features a tomato with five leaves that looks like a hurdler.
And just in case you didnât get what they were trying to depict, Heinz identifies the metaphor with big letters below that say âtrack and field.â
The tagline reads: Every tomato that strives to win is in Heinz.
This ad works because it uses a brilliant visual metaphor that taps into a major sporting event in Guangdong â a key market for Heinz.
Without being an official sponsor of the Games, Heinz took a smarter and more cost-effective approach with this ad.
Plus, the parallel between âhigh-performing athletesâ and âcarefully selected tomatoesâ reinforces their core brand positioning of high-quality products â with every Heinz tomato being a âwinner.â
The full campaign features 34 different tomato-athlete characters (one for each of the 34 sports at the Games).
Heinz featured these ads in high-traffic places like rail stations, subway placements, elevator screens, and social media platforms to get as many eyeballs on them as possible.
As we move into other major sporting events like the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl, advertisers donât need to be an official sponsor to ride the wave of a major sporting event.
Just find a creative angle that connects your brand to the moment, make it shareable, and let everyone else do the rest.
Heinz leveraged a tomato-athlete metaphor to position their product during a major cultural moment.
This next ad uses a metaphor to confront a dark reality while approaching victims with care â demonstrating how to be soft with hard pain points.
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