How Heineken Became the World's Most Creative Brand
Inside the HEINEKEN Company Marketing Factory
About this episode
The three-word formula behind every Heineken campaign (Art, Science, Courage), how the “Fans Have More Friends” insight unified F1, Champions League and music into one platform, why a 150-year-old beer brand builds tech that tells you to put your phone down, the LePub agency model, and turning 142-page playbooks into AI advisory agents.
Key themes
- 01
Art, Science, Courage
The three-word formula Heineken applies to every campaign, and what each word demands in practice.
- 02
“Fans Have More Friends”
The consumer insight that fandom builds social connection, and how it unified Formula 1, the Champions League and music into a single brand platform.
- 03
“Social networking since 1873”
How a 150-year-old beer brand reframes itself as a connector of people, long before social media existed.
- 04
Tech that tells you to put your phone down
Why Heineken builds product and technology designed to push people back into real-world socialising.
- 05
The LePub operating model
How Heineken's bespoke agency model, run with Publicis, is actually structured and run.
- 06
From playbooks to playgrounds
Turning dense 142-page brand playbooks into AI advisory agents marketers can simply ask questions of.
Links, books & references mentioned
Transcript
0:00
The World's Most Creative Brand Hi guys. I'm Dafni Prosalika, partner at REBORRN. I'm in Amsterdam. I just wrapped up the discussion with Rob Global Head of Digital for Heineken, and I think you're gonna love this one. Okay, so one of the campaigns you launched this year is fans have more friends. Yes. 80% of people feel like through their fandom of something, they have met more people than they would have?
0:20
We let Martin Garrix with football, Virgil van Dijk at a music event, Max Verstappen, play a role. That was yeah, the moment that the team working on that campaign, that they felt okay, this might be raw diamond, and that's why we say "Social networking since 1873." There is the combination of Art, science and courage. Within a company like Heineken, we don't have
0:42
factories. We only have breweries because so that's that's the first. Freddy Heineken decided if he would tilt the E's a bit, it looks like people smiling. Change management is not a sprint, but a marathon, and requires a lot of stamina and also a lot of continuous realignment. Is there a campaign or product you can share that didn't go as planned?
1:08
Effective marketing is. Nice to see you. Rob, Nice to have you here, Dafni. Welcome to Marketing Factories. Thank you. I think we can cheer to our discussion. I keep loving, loving having episodes with the beverage producers. Each episode I'm trying a different thing. Very good. Taste good. So I want to start by really congratulating you for this run that the team has had.
A look inside the HEINEKEN Company factory
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Behind-the-scenes.
