In February 2009 Pittsburgh Steelers won their 6th Super Bowl title. At the same time Heinz were launching a new website called www.myheinz.com. The concept behind this website was that fans of Heinz Tomato Ketchup could create a personalised label for their very own bottle of Ketchup.
Probably not something I’d tend to do either, but the point here is that the PR guys at Heinz used the fact that the Pittsburgh Steelers won their 6th Super Bowl as a hook/theme for the launch of this site. It also helped that Heinz has a large factory in the Pittsburgh area.
Heinz sent a press release out explain the new site and included pictures of the new bottles and links to the new site. As a direct result of the press release, Heinz were able to track back an extra 20,000 visits to the site which resulted in an extra 5000 6 packs of Heinz Ketchup bottles being sold (at $36 each).
So what are the lessons leant here? Tagging your PR campaign/press release onto a timely event, and then including links and photos in the release can seriously increase traction and ensure an easier sell-in for a campaign.