I'm not too sure about other folks but, me personally, I have never purchased a brand of mayo aside from Hellmann's. Even at my place of work and at my brothers restaurant, Hellmann's mayo is the go-to. Now, considering this I was pretty intrigued by this new marketing campaign from Hellmann's.
As outlined by this article from the Creative Salon, Hellmann's launched a campaign targeting specifically Heinz and folks in Germany that shared a last name with this brand. The premise was simple but rather outlandish: encourage people named Heinz that liked mayo more than ketchup to officially change their last name to Hellmann's.
They mainly took to Instagram and that was where this campaign caught the most traction. Five Heinz's quickly volunteered to change their last names across all social media platform to show their support for what they believe to be the better condiment brand. One such supporter was Christoph Heinz (Now Hellmann) and stood out by beginning the legal process to become a Hellmann. This completely unexpected response elicited Hellmann's Mayo to create a short documentary film chronicling the name change process for Christoph.
This video is made exceptionally well for it's intention of being relatable and serving as a way to promote Hellmann's over Heinz. It relates Christophs troubles with being named a Heinz having been called "Tomato-Head" and has exceptional product placement of Hellmann's throughout. It carries an upbeat tone through the music choice and has Christoph always smiling whenever Hellmann's gets brought up.
The overall tone of the video and the intent of the campaign are at odds though. The video is largely in line with Hellmann's brand bringing a sense of family, friendliness, and safety. But, the Instagram adverts are largely hostile and declarative towards Heinz. Though, this hostility and conflict isn't necessarily bad.
Folks on the internet tend to like having something to argue about. Feeding this want with your brand is a sure fire way to get your name out there and Hellmann's made a fair attempt at that. They however, fell short in a very crucial spot
This fault was in outreach. They only released these adverts onto their official german instagram account. They made no attempt at releasing onto other platforms like TikTok, X(formerly Twitter), or even Facebook. This lack of range led to this campaign just kind of flopping into the wayside without much traction.
If I were to head up this campaign I would likely have taken to X (formerly twitter) first and released it across both the German and US accounts. The people that regularly use X absolutely love brand conflicts. One such example would be the Wendy's marketing through X. It is generally Wendy's poking fun and finding faults in other fast food chains and folks eat that right up. This seems to be what Hellmann's tried to do as shown by the first image but it landed flat just because of the specific platform they released on and lack of availability across countries.
Overall, the campaign had strong potential. The video was well made and helped in promoting their brand friendliness. The adverts were declarative and provoked engagement through conflict. But, by Jove did they collapse right before the finish with the lack of outreach.
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