Heineken and Heinz are catering to World Cup celebrations with a six-pack containing five beer bottles and one ketchup bottle. Is it marketing gold or an impractical gimmick?
We consult marketing experts, social media, and Packaging Europe’s own content team in search of an answer.
The campaign revolves around a six-pack containing five bottles of Heineken and one bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup. A close-up of each bottle is printed on the bottle carrier, positioned to spell out the Heineken brand name using both companies’ logos and colours.
Campaigns of the World asserts that Heineken and Heinz are “using packaging to celebrate the connection between the two brands”, adding: “The design combines Heineken’s green colour palette with Heinz’s red-and-white visual identity, creating a pack that is immediately recognizable from both sides of the partnership.”
Described by Heineken as ‘the match we’ve all been waiting for’, the campaign is linked to the World Cup through its tagline – and accompanied by promotional photography featuring Heinz- and Heineken-branded football shirts.
“Heineken has always been about sparking fresh connections,” says Nabil Nasser, global head of Heineken Brand. “This collaboration is a reminder that even the most unlikely pairings can feel completely natural when they’re part of shared moments.”
“For 150 years, Heinz and Heineken have been part of the moments that bring people together,” adds Karen Owen, chief growth officer at Heinz. “This summer, we’re making it official. From the irrational love that inspires our fans to go ‘all in’ to our shared commitment to quality, this partnership may be our most rational one yet.”
From a marketing perspective, the collaboration has been widely praised for tapping into existing links between outdoor dining in the summer, social behaviours during sporting events, and the food and drinks already consumed at those gatherings.
“What most brands get wrong: they treat a partnership as a shortcut to relevance; grab a hot name and hope the cool rubs off,” comments Arnaud Fronty, senior brand manager Canada at Lego Group. “That reads as a stunt and dies fast.
“Five Heinekens and one bottle of Heinz ketchup. Two brands pushing 150 years each. No trendy startup in sight. It launched alongside the World Cup, and Heinz’s CMO nailed the logic: these two have been at the same parties for generations. Backyard BBQs, sports watch parties, summer cookouts.”
“No new product, complicated promotion, app or activation,” continues David Wharram, CEO of Elixirr. “Just two brands that already belong together, photographed in a way that makes you smile.
“Marketers often feel pressure to invent something completely new when, in reality, some of the strongest ideas come from observing existing behaviour.”
“With the FIFA World Cup dominating conversations this summer, the campaign cleverly slips into football culture without screaming sponsorship,” writes The Malketeer for Marketing Magazine. “In a crowded World Cup marketing landscape where brands often fight to be louder, Heinz and Heineken have chosen to be more culturally intuitive.”
E.J. Schultz, news editor at AdAge, adds: “Is it stunty? Of course. Will it be widely distributed? Not at all. But it’s getting a lot of attention amid all the World Cup marketing clutter, which is a pretty big win in itself.”
Consumers generally responded positively to the campaign’s launch on the Kraft Heinz and Heineken Instagram accounts, but opinions have differed elsewhere. After the collaboration was shared on Famous Campaigns and Ads With Benefits’ Instagram accounts, some social media users disliked the idea of a multipack containing one less beer bottle – and questioned whether adding a bottle of ketchup would inflate the price.
“Nobody was waiting for this,” one commenter responded to Ads With Benefits.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” another told Famous Campaigns.
The development also sparked mixed reactions among the Packaging Europe content team. Brand director Tim Sykes acknowledged that the social media buzz could put Heineken at the forefront of the conversation around drinking beer at barbecues and made for an effective marketing campaign.
Even so, the team agreed that the combination of products was not logical in practice. They argued that most sport-related gatherings would require more beer than ketchup, and suggested that the sauce is already a household staple for many, making an extra bottle impractical.
In a previous campaign, Chupa Chups developed the ‘final boss’ of lollipop packaging – described as blade-proof, fireproof, and capable of withstanding 1000kg before it cracks. We spoke to design agency BBH London to learn more about the campaign itself, and what it reveals about the effect social media has on how consumers interact with packaging.
In another development described by Candy Kittens co-founder Jamie Laing as a ”top-tier bit of reactive marketing”, Tesco has introduced a football-themed wrapper for its iceberg lettuce to promote healthy eating during the World Cup 2026.
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