Lessons from the condiments aisle… (in 2 mins)
In the 1970s, Heinz had a problem. A well funded competitor had launched a ketchup that poured faster and they were using it in advertising to make Heinz look outdated. The implicit message was clear: slowness is a flaw.
Heinz could have reformulated. Made the ketchup thinner. Competed on the competitor’s terms.
Instead they ran an ad where a bottle of Heinz ketchup sat tilted over a burger and took an age to pour. Set to the Carly Simon song Anticipation, the tagline leaned directly into the problem: the wait.
The campaign reframed the entire conversation. Thickness was not a manufacturing inconvenience. It was proof of quality. A fast pouring ketchup was thin. A thin ketchup was cheap. And cheap was not what you wanted on your food.
The weakness did not disappear. It became the reason to believe.
Suddenly the competitor’s attack, that it poured faster, had turned into a liability for them. Faster now implied thinner, which implied inferior. Heinz had used their opponent’s momentum and redirected it, judo style, straight back.
SO WHAT?
Every organisation has things about itself it treats as weaknesses to be managed or hidden. The fundraising charity that has been around for over a century and worries it seems old fashioned. The smaller agency that is not a big network and apologises for it. The newer entrant that lacks heritage.
Before you spend energy compensating for a weakness it is worth asking whether the weakness is actually a weakness in the mind of your audience. Or whether that is just a story you have been telling yourself.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is stop hiding the thing and put it front and centre. Own it so completely that it becomes the proof of something your audience actually wants.
