The ketchup-makers have at last picked up a 1968 pitch from Don Draper – but real-life brand association was in the show’s blood
In season six of Mad Men, Don Draper and Stan Rizzo pitch a minimalist, elegant idea to Heinz. Presenting three images – of chips, a steak and a burger – against stark white backdrops, there is only one thing missing. Don and Stan flip cellophane sheets over the pictures to add the slogan: “Pass the Heinz.” It is not well-received. “It feels like half an ad,” says the Heinz exec.
However, Don’s remarkable ability to survive any setback, be it divorce, identity theft or alcoholism, has come to the fore again, as Heinz have at last picked up his pitch. In a canny bit of marketing, the company has turned Don’s half-ad into a full one, appearing on a billboard in New York and in print in Variety and the New York Post. They sent credits to AdWeek that looked as though they had been produced on a typewriter, which attributed the work not just to Heinz’s real-life ad agency, David, but to the fictional Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. David’s chief creative officer, Anselmo Ramos, even added a spot of corporate fan fiction, claiming to have had a cocktail with Don Draper, who would, by now, be 91, and on his third liver at least. As a stunt, it has been effective enough that SDCP would be proud, and the fact that it had already been created presumably saved on office hours, although David says it did have to reshoot the images.
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