ADWEEK: Why did Heinz decide to jump on this cultural moment?
TODD KAPLAN: “This partnership with Mustard, it’s been in discussions with him for nearly a year, in the making. He’s been around long before people were saying ‘MUSTAAAAAARRRD!’ As a brand that’s a household name like Heinz, we don’t have an awareness issue. It’s about trying to drive deeper relevance and connection to our consumers and knowing what a passion point music is and how culturally relevant Mustard is.
“Now, he’s at a whole new level of cultural fluency, [and] I think it’s a great connection point for our brands and a way to authentically find a connection to a product that we don’t talk a lot about.”
AW: You said this was a year in the making, so what was that initial approach and conversation like? Nobody knew there was going to be this moment with him and Kendrick Lamar, but it sounds like that gave the brand more of a reason to push this partnership out right now.
TK: “It’s been a bit of a mutual discussion. He’s an authentic fan of the product. He made his own Heinz diamond-encrusted yellow chain. And so knowing that, that started the discussion of like, ‘Hey, we see you. Let’s talk.’ As we got into it, we realized there’s a lot of good synergies and then, as you know, his stuff continued to come out with Kendrick in terms of “Not Like Us” and “tv off.” We had done some stuff on social with him during a couple of those earlier key moments and things like that as well.
“We just had him, a few weeks ago, to our offices with our R&D [research and development] people, and now the opportunity to be able to formulate a new limited-edition mustard. He’s super excited, we’re super excited, [and] it’s a really great partnership.”
AW: What has the reaction been like?
TK: “Nowadays, especially with advertising and marketing, a lot of stuff doesn’t get noticed that’s out there today, let alone get embraced. The sentiment has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s been fun seeing the culture recognize it as it is rippling out and doing its thing, which is great.”