Pop-Up Facebook Fan-Store Sells Personalised Heinz Soup [Screenshots]

So Ketchup King Heinz has thrown up a Pop-Up Fan-Store in Facebook selling personalised cans of Heinz soup to UK Heinz fans.

The pop-up store allows Heinz fans (and-only fans) to send personalised ‘get-well’ cans of Heinz soup to friends suffering from post-summer distress disorder – i.e. Autumn colds and chills, for a £1.99 ($3.00) PayPal payment via an store app on the brand’s Facebook page.

The customised cans feature a personal get-well message on the label, via a custom store app on the Heinz fan-page from London-based social media agency We Are Social.

What we really like about this Heinz pop-up fan-store is that it taps into Facebook strengths – gifting – an eminently social activity, and personalisation (although not, in this case, via the social graph).  Personalised gifts in Facebook make real sense.  Kudos Heinz.

Expect other food and beverage brands – champagne, chocolates, wine and soda come to mind – to follow.

Heinz is emerging as something of a poster-child for f-commerce in FMCG/CPG – earlier in the year it opened a pop-up fan-store in Facebook to support the launch of a new line of ketchup by offering fans exclusive fan-first access to the product before it became available in-store (also by We Are Social). And last month, Heinz ran a social couponing campaign, where the value of the coupon doubled when shared.

Providing a rationale for the Facebook activity, Matthew Cullum, Heinz Soup marketing controller, said, “Because Facebook is a place people choose to engage with our brand, we want to be there…  Our use of these channels doesn’t replace TV, but it is a great compliment to it because it allows the consumer to spread the word and they engage more than they would with traditional channels such as TV or Radio.”