Heinz was looking to drive a trial of their iconic Tomato Ketchup and build brand love amongst Aussies. Leveraging on their partnership with the AFL (Australian Football League), we were tasked with creating limited edition packaging to ignite excitement through the season with passionate AFL fans across the country.

We knew that the 90s was making a well-deserved comeback; in music, fashion and culture. Tapping into this iconic era and pulling on nostalgic heartstrings, we wanted to bring back the AFL’s set of retro mascot characters, symbolic with the decade.

We evolved the illustrated characters in a way that maintained their original retro quirkiness and integrity but allowed us to bring more meaning to them on pack. By replacing the iconic red Sherrin football with Heinz Tomato Ketchup’s very own red icon – the tomato, we brought a stronger connection between these treasured mascots and the Heinz brand.

To break down the cultural barrier and associations of sauce vs ketchup, we changed the name to ‘Footy Ketchup’. This in turn helped us strengthen the AFL fans’ allegiance with the Heinz ketchup they know and love from the stadiums, and bring that love into their homes.

The simplicity and integrity of our original mascot idea translated well into the final design as it remained almost unchanged since our very first sketch, something that’s quite rare in a mainstream category project for such a big brand as Heinz.

The outcome was a successful limited edition ‘Footy Ketchup’ series, with collectable bottles that celebrated each of the 18 AFL clubs and brought fans together across the nation.