The first week of September saw Heineken add a splash of sporting fun to its marketing mix with the launch of a new global campaign created in harness with agency Publicis Italy.
Spearheaded by a set of three new hero commercials which individually focus on its big three sports sponsorships – UEFA Champions League, Formula 1 (F1) and the Rugby World Cup, the initiative aims to connect with millennial drinkers.
The glitzy launch spot, called ‘Perfect Man’, stars the beer brand’s F1 ambassador David Coulthard and is set in the glamour of a Monte Carlo ballroom at a grand prix after party.
The creative features F1 as a motif through the narrative arc and aims to encourage viewers to take life slightly less seriously with a fresh perspective.
With ornately painted ceilings and crystal chandeliers, a band dressed up a racers perform for the glamorous congregation while Coulthard circuits the party with charismatic charm and grace (with behind-the-scenes help from his crew).
The ‘Perfect Man’ spot’s television debut was timed to launch with the Heineken-sponsored F1 Gran Premio Heineken D’Italia 2018 (Italian Grand Prix) and ran across digital and social channels in other markets.
The ads do not include a taglines, instead they each take a cliché and twist it – with each execution closing with ‘That’s Heineken’.
“TV still plays quite a big role across our market,” says Di Tondo, “But digital is getting more important and interesting – so we have a lead TV spot backed by hundreds of pieces of digital content.”
The three lead spot come in 60-second and 30-second versions for TV and YouTube, plus digital video content lasting 10, six or three seconds positioned as ‘satellite content’.
The new positioning focuses more on enabling and encouraging consumers to enjoy life: with a strategy more focused on the product over the brand.
Comment:
A slick and stylish ad, but David Coulthard and Millennials?
Really?
The first work in the new platform sees Heineken drop its long-running ‘Open Your World’ big idea: which the beer brand’s marketing team felt was no longer connecting with its target consumer – especially with millennials.
Heineken is getting rid of taglines in a new marketing strategy that sees it embrace clichés and appeal to millennials.
‘Open Your World’ debuted in 2011, but the brand’s annual brand testing suggested that the campaign was no longer working.
That old idea was based on the insight that ‘to progress in life you must cross your border’ and this was seen as more pressuring than inspirational.
“When the core of our target audience was millennials for the first time we got a push back because ‘you must cross your border’ is an instruction coming from a brand,” explained senior global brand dorector Gianluca Di Tondo.
“Millennials are interesting because for the first time you have the same typology of people around the world. This generation feels more pressure because of that. They believe that the previous generation broke the world in many ways – from climate change to the economy – and they feel the responsibility of having to save it. ‘You must cross your border’ was simply another a layer of pressure that we were putting on top of them.”
Links:
Heineken
https://www.facebook.com/Heineken
https://www.instagram.com/Heineken/
https://www.youtube.com/user/heineken
Publicis Italy
