How Kraft Heinz Is Using GenAI To Reimagine The Future Of Creative Content – Forrester
Manuel Geitz, Principal Analyst
If you haven’t seen it yet and have 55 seconds to spare, I highly recommend you take a look at Heinz’s “A.I. Ketchup” campaign. By asking Dall-E 2 to generate an image of a ketchup bottle, the firm provided creative and entertaining proof that Heinz is not just another ketchup brand. Ketchup is indeed synonymous with the Heinz brand.
But Kraft Heinz didn’t stop at marketing campaigns when it comes to using generative AI (genAI) for design and innovation. In a bold move to modernize its internal design processes, Kraft Heinz embraced genAI to scale content creation and personalization. The result? A complete reimagining of how one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies brings its iconic brands to life.
With over 100 brands and a global footprint, Kraft Heinz faced a familiar but formidable challenge: how to keep packaging and marketing content fresh, personalized, and on brand message — without the long lead times and high costs of traditional agency workflows.
Justin Thomas, Kraft Heinz’s head of digital experience and growth, described the problem as follows: “How can we leverage AI to create more engaging personalized content at scale, reduce costs and time-to-market for product concepts, and do so while maintaining brand consistency and data security?”
Enter the TasteMaker, the company’s custom-built retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) engine. Developed in partnership with Apply Digital and powered by Google’s Vertex AI, TasteMaker is more than a tool — it’s an innovation and design engine.
Kraft Heinz didn’t wait for perfection. The team launched fast, starting with four use cases and scaling quickly after early wins, focusing on:
In parallel to deploying the solution across product lines, Justin Thomas and the TasteMaker team have established an ambitious roadmap:
While the current results and the roadmap are impressive, the real story is the mindset shift. TasteMaker isn’t just a tool; it’s a new way of working and driving creative design.
Do you want to dive deeper into the details of how a 150-year-old brand is leading the AI-powered future of creativity? Read the full case study to explore how Kraft Heinz is turning generative AI into a competitive advantage.
London & Digital
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