Heinz achieved its goal of getting the same number of hot dogs and buns in packages

As quirky consumer pain points go, few are as irrationally irksome as hot dogs being sold in packs of 10 while buns come in packs of eight. Heinz, whose ketchup is central to the union of both products, built a whole amusing campaign around this—and even, to a degree, managed to solve it. See all of Ad Age's 2023 Creativity Award winners here Working with Rethink, Heinz introduced the “Hot Dog Pact,” a rallying cry for the numbers to be equal. A petition on Change.org drew 15,000 signatures in the first 24 hours, and the campaign caught fire in pop culture, with mentions everywhere from morning TV to late night. Last summer, the call was heeded by none other than Wonder Bread, which finally made 10-packs of buns that hit shelves in June. “If you’re looking purely at social, the Heinz thing’s really annoying but in a good way,” said one Creativity Awards juror. “It’s one of those things we’ve probably all gotten to in a review and gone, ‘Oh, that’s so true!’ And then gone, ‘What do we do with it?’ They had the absolute madness to not only put it out, but to back it, flood it, PR it, push it. You know how hard it is to create the kind of vibe around this that they got? I applaud that, too.” See all the 2023 Ad Age Creativity Awards winners.

Heinz achieved its goal of getting the same number of hot dogs and buns in packages

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