For Winning Tomatoes, IT HAS TO BE HEINZ

Heinz wanted to promote the strength of using quality tomatoes, but advertising in China restricts the use of superlative claims like 'the best.' So it created 34 'Winning Tomatoes,' one for each of the 34 events at China's National Games, connecting athletes chasing record-breaking performances to the brand's obsession with ingredient quality. Without ever saying the word 'best,' the campaign earned more than 60 million impressions and a surge in WeChat searches, cleverly proving quality through the language of sports 'victory.'

Barred by Chinese law from calling its tomatoes the 'best,' Heinz reposed the humble tomato calyx into 34 athletic silhouettes — one 'tomato athlete' for each event of the 2025 National Games. As a non-official sponsor, it hijacked the country's biggest sporting moment with the line 'For Winning Tomatoes, It Has To Be Heinz,' turning a legal ban into a champion's story. Ads dominated the subway station nearest the main stadium and dropped online the instant each first gold was won. The result: 60M+ impressions, a 1,092% surge in WeChat searches on launch day, and a wave of user-generated buzz that made ketchup the surprise star of the Games.

China's Advertising Law forbids superlative claims like 'best' or 'No.1,' so the whole campaign engineers a quality claim without breaking the rule — swapping 'best' for 'winning.' The National Games (全运会) is China's largest domestic multi-sport event, effectively its own Olympics, whose opening ceremony drew 108 million viewers. Because Heinz was a non-official sponsor, it evokes the Games only through generic athletic poses (ambush marketing), and placed ads at Guangzhou Metro's Tiyu Xilu — 'Sports West Road' — the station nearest the main venue.