More than half a century since its seminal tag line, “Heineken refreshes the parts other beers can’t reach”, the country’s favourite lager is still taking a refreshingly creative approach to advertising and marketing.
Tastier still, much of the great work it puts out globally is brewed up here in Ireland.
Heineken is, says media expert Dave Winterlich, the “gold standard” in terms of creativity, despite – or possibly because – beer is such a tough category to stand out in.
“Without being disrespectful to the brewing process, to the casual bystander a lot of beer looks the same,” explains Winterlich. With no physical or functional attributes to help differentiate it, it’s a category where marketing has become the big differentiator.
He points to the success of creative strategic partner Publicis’s Daniel Craig Vs James Bond ad, in 2020, recently acknowledged by industry insiders as one of the best beer ads of all time.
The Bond-style parody features an all too humanly exhausted Daniel Craig, racing through an Italian village to retrieve his passport from a taxi and ultimately eschewing a martini to slake his thirst afterwards in favour of a cool bottle of Heineken.
It’s no surprise then, Heineken ranked second in the world for creativity in the recently published WARC Creative 100 list, an independent industry benchmark.
“Heineken is one of the most refreshing beer brands and that comes through in all of the marketing campaigns,” says the company’s marketing director, Fiona Curtin. “We see ourselves as brewers and brand builders. Marketing is at the heart of our growth strategy.”
Part of its marketing success is attributable to consistently conveyed core values, even as the creatives supporting it change.
“One of the mistakes brands make in general is that they change too often,” says Winterlich. “You see it all the time with new tenure, a new marketing director or team comes in and tends to change things. That flip flopping approach … loses the fact that things build slowly over time, in the medium to long term.”
By contrast, “Heineken has done really well by being true to itself as opposed to ‘chasing culture’,” he says.
So how exactly has it done it?
The brand’s focus on creativity came into focus under Freddy Heineken, grandson of the brewery’s founder, who was chair and chief executive throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
“He famously said: ‘We don’t sell beer, we sell a feeling.’ It’s a mindset that instilled the sense of curiosity and creativity into the fabric of our business which is still really evident today,” she explains.
“Over the years Heineken has been rooted in refreshment and sociability. So it’s about remembering what our role is in that story, knowing where we have credibility to participate and where it’s better to stay clear.”
Internationally the global brand benefits from partnerships with premium sports properties, ranging from the Uefa Champion’s League to Formula 1.
“That gives us a great intro into culture which we can leverage with our consumers in Ireland, taking the global properties and making them more relevant in an Irish context,” she adds.
“All organisations have an ambition to dial up creativity – we aren’t the only ones that understand and appreciate the importance of it to differentiate ourselves – but as an organisation we really put value behind it in terms of marketing being the shaper and driver of that creativity. We have a constant desire to add creativity and ‘new news’ to any campaign we take forward.”
Last year’s Heineken Pub Museums campaign is a case in point. Developed by Publicis Dublin, it showcases the importance of pubs to Ireland’s social fabric down through the ages, not just as servers of beer but as preservers of history.
Based on virtual reality exhibitions in some of Ireland’s iconic pubs, the campaign highlighted the rich heritage and stories that have made the pub such an important part of the community for generations.
‘Generations have come together to sing, dance, tell stories and connect with each other’
One of Winterlich’s personal favourites was the award-winning Heineken “Unwasted Beer” public information campaign during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the strap line, “When we couldn’t serve beer, we served the planet”, it showed how Heineken sent beer that couldn’t be served in pubs as a result of lockdowns to be recycled as pig feed, fertiliser and as a feedstock for biogas instead. Another product of Publicis Dublin, it went on to win awards at the Cannes Festival of Creativity.
Coming out of the pandemic the brand supported the reopening of the hospitality industry with the launch of a €10m stimulus programme called “Fresh Beginnings”, which saw the group’s employees receive a staff stimulus fund to spend in pubs around the country.
Initiatives included giving each Heineken employee €250 to spend in venues, with sales reps providing a welcome back fund of gift vouchers to bar staff.
Most recently, Heineken Ireland has launched a global campaign to find a new owner for an iconic Irish pub, McLoughlin’s Bar, on Achill Island, Co Mayo.
The current owners of the fourth-generation pub, which opened in 1870, are retiring but have no direct family to take over. The campaign taps into Ireland’s worldwide diaspora in a bid to find a “long lost cousin” – a McLoughlin somewhere who will buy the pub and keep the name over the door.
It’s part of Heineken’s “For the Love of Pubs” platform, again designed to support publicans and celebrate the central role pubs play in society here.
It’s based on industry research that shows a significant number of publicans here are considering retirement but have no family to take over their legacy.
“That got us thinking, how can we solve this problem? So we challenged our agencies to find a way to shine a spotlight on this issue and show support in an innovative and authentic way,” says Curtin.
Again, it’s about staying true to its core values.
“Heineken as a brand has championed sociability for over 150 years,” says Curtin. “As Ireland’s favourite lager brand, it was really important to lean into a story like this, to support the places where people socialise, which in Ireland really is the pub itself. It’s where generations have come together to sing, dance, tell stories and connect with each other.”
“We made a decision to go big on this because we believe in the idea so much. And, as the most international beer brand in the world, we’re taking this story to the over 190 countries.”
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