Heinz has put a lot of work into promoting the idea of irrational love for Heinz throughout the world. The campaigns have been fun, funny and largely true – many using real life examples.
But social media is a fickle beast and sometimes it takes one raindrop to create a storm of dislike. Heinz’ first storm came from a single post on X. Nels Abbey took objection to VML’s portrayal of newlyweds with the groom’s white parents and only the bride’s Black mother in a campaign for the brand’s new family-size pasta sauce. (The point of the campaign was that people will break rules for Heinz love, but race had nothing to do with the ad’s humour. That came from the bride slurping pasta sauce in her white bridal gown.)
"For my brothers with daughters"
Because, believe it or not, Black girls have Dads too. pic.twitter.com/LngrCCZ4rW
— Nels Abbey (@nelsabbey) October 4, 2024
Heinz apologised elegantly and sincerely.
But days later, a second campaign was targeted. One of Gut New York’s tomato-sauce ghoul portraits for Halloween, the haters said, looked very much like blackface.
Social media picked up on the inadvertent blunder quickly. Heinz pulled the ad, that was running in UK, Spain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy, before the censure could spread further than it had.
Heinz apologised elegantly and sincerely again.
