A Keg of Ketchup Will Make You Rethink Your Career

I was reading a post on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7423016998617473025/) by Jason Feifer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonfeifer/), the Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. In a recent article, Jason was interviewing Gary Vaynerchuk (https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyvaynerchuk/) about how marketing has changed, specifically through a redefinition of the mid funnel. The traditional idea of a funnel still exists, but where and how momentum is created has shifted. In the post, Jason shared a story that stuck with me. Heinz once posted a simple image on Instagram about a fictional keg of ketchup. It wasn't clever. It wasn't polished. It wasn't even particularly strategic. It was, by most standards, a "stupid" idea. But it caught. The post went viral, and instead of ignoring that signal, Heinz leaned into it. They took what worked, refined it, and eventually turned that one throwaway idea into a full marketing campaign tied to the Super Bowl. A joke became a brand moment. What really hit me was this; the exact same approach can unlock your own career growth. I've talked about marketing yourself before, all the way back in Episode 018, Selling Yourself (https://managingacareer.com/18 ). At its core, marketing is about understanding the needs of your customer and aligning your product to those needs. In your career, the "customers" are the leaders who influence your advancement, and the "product" is you. Traditionally, career growth follows a familiar funnel. You build awareness through visibility (Episode 081, Visibility - https://managingacareer.com/81 ), you demonstrate value over time, and eventually that narrows down to the "purchase" decision; a promotion, a bigger role, or expanded scope. But this is where Gary's insight becomes so useful. The traditional funnel doesn't work the same way anymore. In the modern world, social has become the mid funnel. That means you don't have to start with a perfectly crafted brand or a fully formed strategy. You can start by testing ideas. Simple ideas. Rough ideas. Even ideas that feel dumb or unfinished. If an idea hits, you work it in the lower funnel; executing, refining, and proving it delivers results. Once it's proven, you expand it upward, where it becomes part of your reputation and your brand. That's exactly what Heinz did with a silly idea about a keg of ketchup…and it's a playbook most professionals never realize they can use. When it comes to their careers, most people have traditionally focused on the ends of the funnel; either the upper funnel or the lower funnel. In the upper funnel, the goal is recognition. You bring big ideas to meetings. You look for moments to contribute something bold. You try to get your name and your thinking in front of leaders who matter. There's an element of performance here; a desire to stand out. At its worst, this looks like jumping up and down and shouting, "NOTICE ME!" In the lower funnel, the belief is almost the opposite. You expect your work to speak for itself. You execute…and you execute well. You hit deadlines. You deliver quality. You take pride in being reliable and consistent, trusting that results will eventually turn into recognition. In reality, both ends of the funnel matter. Living exclusively in the upper funnel without execution comes across as fluff and self-promotion. Living exclusively in the lower funnel without a personal brand (Episode 043, Personal Brand - https://managingacareer.com/43 ) feels invisible, no matter how good the work is. But in a modern marketing world, it may be time to try something different. Instead of starting at the top or grinding endlessly at the bottom, start in the middle. Work the mid funnel first. Test ideas in low-risk ways. Put thoughts, perspectives, and small experiments into the world and watch how people respond. If something resonates…if it creates pull rather than push…then you scale it. In marketing, Gary's point was simple. Organic social media is where you test ideas cheaply and quickly. You don't overthink them. You don't turn them into million-dollar campaigns. You post, you watch, you learn. At work, your mid funnel works exactly the same way…it's just not called social media. At work, it's the water cooler; real or virtual; where you run an idea by a peer. At work, it's a small demo shown to a single stakeholder. At work, it's an informal focus group that pokes holes in a broken process. At work, the mid funnel is small experiments and low-risk initiatives you try before you ask for permission and before you allocate real resources. Mid-funnel career moves aren't about being loud. They're about being observable. For an individual contributor, this shift can look subtle but powerful. Upper-funnel you says, "We should completely rethink how our team reports metrics." Lower-funnel you ...