In what is set to be one of the most unexpected partnerships of the year, household favourite Heinz has teamed up with premium vodka brand Absolut Vodka to make the dreams of Penne alla Vodka lovers come true, launching the UK’s first tomato vodka pasta sauce in a limited-edition launch which was unveiled late-March.
In this article we explore the role creators played in delivering high engagement and awareness during an iconic limited edition campaign.
What is the #AbsolutelyHeinz campaign?
Since American model Gigi Hadid’s take on Penne alla Vodka took off on TikTok in 2020, a surge of social users were looking to try the dish.
Now, Heinz and Absolut Vodka have made people’s culinary lives easier by releasing the limited edition sauce in a jar for their convenience, which has been described as a “match made in heaven”.
The campaign from Wunderman Thompson Spain pays homage to the iconic Absolut ads, featuring their straightforward design and slogans, only with a Heinz twist. The taglines take off on the Absolut style, tweaking it to read “Absolutely Heinz. Ridiculously Good.”
#AbsolutelyHeinz, amplified by creators
The campaign went live in mid-March with out-of-home ads across London followed by a social media campaign featuring the hashtag #AbsolutelyHeinz. #AbsolutelyHeinz has been amplified through social media calling on creators to get involved in the iconic collaboration, particularly on Instagram and TikTok.
The campaign uses a combination of niche (nano and micro-influencers) and mass (macro and mega-influencers) marketing to encourage users to try out the new sauce. Niche marketing was utilised by gifting 150 food nano and micro-influencers the Pasta alla Vodka for free to share with their communities online! Whereas mass marketing was used to generate awareness amongst food lovers from credible creators.
Gifta, an influencer marketing agency and platform that specialise in gifting products to nano and micro Influencers at scale, gifted jars of Pasta alla Vodka in personalised boxes to make the interaction feel special in hope to inspire and engage their food to engage and try the product out for themselves.
Heinz x Absolut, trusting in creator authenticity
The #AbsolutelyHeinz campaign has seen a huge success with creators. Within one week of the campaign release, the hashtag #AbsouleteyHeinz received over 6.2 millions views on TikTok and 250 + pieces of content with one video that went viral from @Kristinacooksit.
Nano-influencer @kristinacooksit who has a follower count of 700, was involved with the #AbsolutelyHeinz campaign on TikTok; Kristina posted a TikTok video unboxing the Pasta alla Vodka from Gifta which received a whopping 6 million views alone within two weeks which highlights the power of TikTok.
@kristinacooksit @Heinz UK x Absolut collab and I am here for this!!! Look at this packaging! Video coming soon 🙌 #tomatovodka #tomatovodkapasta #absolutelyheinz #pastasauce ♬ Swimming Pools (Drank) – Kendrick Lamar
Verified macro-influencer and chef @johngs also took part in the campaign taking the iconic sauce to Instagram adding a creative twist with different ingredients.
Engaging with micro and macro-creators
While a macro-influencer might have a larger reach in terms of followers, micro and nano-influencers tend to receive higher engagement due to having a highly targeted and engaged audience and this can propel a piece of content to have greater visibility – particularly on TikTok.
Macro-influencers specifically in the food community were used to generate awareness for the product in a short period of time as shown with creators @johngs reaching 102,000 views and @alexandradudley reaching 30,000 views on Instagram. Credible creators with a strong culinary background can be perceived as trustworthy and therefore also receive high engagement. Demonstrated in the #AbsolutelyHeinz campaign, the partnership between the brand and creator suits the audience expectation therefore brings in more engagement.
The limited edition partnership between Heniz and Absolut proved to be successful particularly when amplified by micro and macro-creators. The use of micro and macro-creators has demonstrated to be a very powerful tool to maximise the impact of the campaign especially through culinary creators.
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