How Linda McMahon’s “A.1.” Gaffe Sparked a Viral Campaign for Steak Sauce

When Secretary of Education Linda McMahon accidentally referred to AI as “A.1.” at the ASU+GSV Summit last week, Kraft Heinz couldn’t resist having fun with the mix-up.

Instead of letting the moment pass, the food giant and owner of A.1. steak sauce tapped its creative partner, Mischief @ No Fixed Address, to the opportunity with a clever and playful social media post—all within 24 hours of the incident.

The image featured an A.1. bottle labeled “For education purposes only,” with a bold banner declaring, “Agree. Best to start them early.” The caption read, “You heard her. Every school should have access to A.1.”

The result? Thousands of comments, massive social media engagement, and a playful nod to the brand’s bold, saucy tone.

Even John Oliver got in on the fun, calling the incident on his show Last Week Tonight “a perfect distillation of our current times ” and applauding the brand for dunking on the U.S. Secretary of Education’s blunder.

“We had just this moment of thinking, ‘A.1. is an iconic brand,’” Jess Vultaggio, vice president of creative culture and effectiveness at Kraft Heinz, told ADWEEK. “So we were like, ‘We have to do something with this. Should we do something with this? We have to do something with this.’”

So, the team texted Kraft in the middle of the night after McMahon’s gaffe took place.

“A few of us who work on the account [were] like, ‘This is really funny. Should we do something?’” Greg Hahn, co-founder and CCO at Mischief, told ADWEEK. “We’re constantly online, so of course, we all jumped on it.”

Once the decision was made to respond, the creative team at Mischief quickly got to work. “We started batting around ideas instantly, just back and forth,” Hahn said. “We landed on some of the exact lines that ended up on the post.”

“We didn’t want it to be leaning one too far one side or the other,” he added. “We just wanted something everybody could laugh at and enjoy.”

At Kraft Heinz, the approval process was lightning-fast. “We recognize the power of having our brands…be part of the conversation,” Vultaggio said, adding that Mischief doesn’t work on the A.1. account but is “a long-standing partner of Kraft Heinz.”

Once the concept was pitched, it was approved almost immediately. “I saw it, and it was up within an hour,” Vultaggio recalled. “We had all the right people sitting together. We had our external creative advisor, our CMO, and the A.1. brand team. It was just, ‘Okay, grab people, look, any builds, now let’s go.’”

Vultaggio emphasized how crucial speed was to the campaign’s success: “If you don’t move fast on these things, you kind of miss the moment.”

Once the post went live, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “They’re almost exclusively fun,” Vultaggio said of the comments on the post, noting the number of puns and witty statements about A.1. and AI.

Some of the comments on the Instagram post include “When it comes to education, there’s so much at ‘steak,’” and “Make America Saucy Again.”

The engagement numbers were also impressive, though Vultaggio declined to share specific figures. “We’ve seen thousands of comments on the post, as well as a spike in followers,” said Vultaggio. “A.1. didn’t have a huge following on social, and we didn’t put paid [media] behind this. The engagement we saw, especially on TikTok, was organic and speaks to the speed of the response and the creativity.”

According to Hahn, Mischief’s creative culture played a crucial role getting the campaign to fruition. “A big part of our culture is this freedom to say, ‘we’re a safe space for dangerous ideas,’” he said. “If you have an idea like this, even if it comes from someone else, throw it in the text chat, and let’s see if we can make something of it.”

The team’s willingness to act fast and embrace creativity was key. “There was no hesitation,” Hahn explained. “Everybody was all in. A lot of places are learning that the old processes don’t necessarily work in today’s environment.”

The rapid response is now part of Kraft Heinz’s recipe for future campaigns. “We’ve learned over time to not let procedures get in the way,” Vultaggio said. “When the news cycle moves fast, you’ve got to move with it.”