Future Talent / Heinz

The case of the few special grads

The beginning

Every student knows Heinz can offer a handy solution to a mealtime dilemma. But not everyone realises they offer pretty tasty graduate careers, too. Here’s the story of how we went about changing all that.

Heinz wanted to recruit graduates into sales, marketing, finance and logistics roles – but first they had to make a name for themselves within the graduate market. Plus, as they were only looking to fill ten vacancies, they needed a focused campaign aimed at raising awareness of Heinz among quality graduates, without inviting the volumes of applications that a broader campaign would attract.

The middle

We chose to establish a presence for Heinz at a small number of universities. A branded recruitment stand was kitted out as a soup stall, dispensing free samples of Heinz soup to students as they braved the chilly February weather on their way to classes. This was supported by a campus poster campaign and HTML shot directing people to the stand. We also gave out Heinz logo-shaped brochures to provide more information about the company and the vacancies.

The theme for the photographically led campaign was ‘Always Thinking’. Heinz is seen as a traditional company with well-established, well-loved products. But what graduates might not know is that Heinz is also highly innovative. And the ideas they need can come from anyone – the most senior manager to the newest recruit. Put simply, graduates have a real opportunity to shape the future of Heinz.

The end

As a result of the on-campus activity, Heinz received 261 applications for their graduate programme, 25% of which were from the universities visited and 75% were from the targeted e-shots or other methods. The soup giveaway created a great deal of interest around Heinz as a graduate employer, and they’re well on their way to filling their graduate positions.