THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 16th Annual Shorty Awards

#FindTheKetchupBoatGuy

Winner in Call to Action, User-Generated Content

Gold Honor in Real Time Response

Bronze Honor in Earned Media

Objectives

Background

When Heinz heard about Elvis Francois-- the sailor who survived 24 days at sea on a bottle of ketchup-- we knew we had to reward his bravery with a new boat. But after reaching out to his home nation of Dominica and his rescuers at the Colombian Navy, there was just one problem...We couldn’t find him.

Objective

The primary objective was twofold: first, to find and reward Elvis for his astounding bravery with a new boat, and second, to create a captivating and impactful campaign around this incredible story. Traditional channels and investigative efforts had proven unsuccessful, setting the stage for the initiation of the #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy campaign.

Idea

After exhausting our leads to find and reward Elvis Francois, we put out an SOS on social media to help us #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy. We then worked with internet sleuths and Heinz fans worldwide to spread the message.

Strategy and Execution

Strategy

Targeting armchair internet detectives and our worldwide Heinz community, we leveraged a powerful call to action in the form of the hashtag #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy to rally the world to help Heinz find Elvis Francois.

We then amplified this CTA through a global outreach campaign that resulted in

Execution

On February 14, 2023 Heinz posted an SOS to the Heinz US Instagram account. A message in a Heinz bottle for the world to help us #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy.

Results

Results

A happy ending to Elvis Francois’ incredible story, only made possible because the world worked together to help Heinz #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy. Our message in a bottle resulted in thousands of messages, shares, likes, and headlines on six continents.

Media

Video for #FindTheKetchupBoatGuy

Entrant Company / Organization Name

The Kitchen North America, Kraft Heinz

Entry Credits