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Heinz brings in ‘big red’ Cameron Ling for new campaign

Lingy Poster (1)Consumer goods brand Heinz has signed former star AFL player and now Seven commentator Cameron Ling in an effort to promote its ‘Big Red’ brand.

Ling, who was famous for red hair as well as his skills in AFL, will be a brand ambassador for a new range of the ‘Big Red’ Tomato sauce.

The sponsorship was negotiated by Melbourne media agency Vizeum and will see Ling represent Heinz in above the line, point of sale and experiential campaigns over the coming months.

According to the announcement Heinz Marketing team and Vizeum Melbourne wanted “to build an emotional connection between the new top down see-through bottle of Big Red and consumers” and saw Ling as the means of building that connection.

A national campaign Vizeum, said it was confident the campaign would still work in NSW and QLD where NRL is more dominant.

“Cameron Ling has a profile that is building nationally, fronting AFL programs across Australia and with a presence in two different programs,” said Danielle Gowling, business director at Vizeum.

“We acknowledge that there is a divide between AFL and NRL followers in Australia but our research proved there are fans everywhere.  With this approach we anticipate that in television alone, we will reach in excess of 4.75 million people with audiences of around 3 million expected for the AFL Grand Final.”

HorizontalGowling added: “Cameron Ling was a no brainer for this campaign; he’s a red head, is synonymous with footy and has an association with quality. We’ve had a lot of fun working with him so far and we look forward to seeing the results for Heinz Big Red.”

Heinz’s group marketing manager Natalie Koenen, said the campaign, which consists of integrated sponsorships across much of Seven AFL’s coverage, would give them great access ahead of the final rounds of this year’s competition.

“Vizeum’s strategy will give us fantastic access to footy at a time when the race to the finals draws huge crowds to games and the broadcast viewers soar. Our hard working Heinz team together with our creative agency BD and Vizeum all believe we have hit the mark regarding audience association and we expect this ‘sport centric’ approach to be a match winner for the Big Red brand, ” said Koenen.

Creative agency BD Network were involved in the development of the ‘Reinvented by Lingy’ TV commercial  and other consumer facing elements of the campaign including point of sale.

The former Geelong player recently introduced a preview to the campaign in a ‘Gimme Something’ segment on the AFL Pre Game broadcast on the Seven Network on July 20th. The campaign officially launched on 27 July.

Nic Christensen 

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