Heineken on using social media to ‘carve out meaningful space’ in a crowded category

Despite being limited by social media regulations in relation to alcohol advertising, Heineken is betting on influencers to build its brands.

Natasha Maharaj, global brands director at Heineken covering Tiger, Desperados and Amstel, believes influencers can connect the brands to culture and relevant audiences. As an alcohol brand, Heineken aims to be “hyper-conscious and responsible” with the influencers it selects, ensuring content is legal and at least 21 plus.

“We choose creators who are responsible with their alcohol consumption, they’re responsible with their messaging in captions, they don’t have any past issues with alcohol,” says Maharaj.

The vetting process has paid off, particularly for Desperados.

“They’ve [the influencers] really become lifelong advocates and brand creators versus just someone you have on the payroll. The level of involvement is fantastic,” says Maharaj.

Having fully leant into working with creators two years ago, the Desperados team relies on data insights to inform its strategy. So far, the brand has recognised creators as being valuable long-term partners, describing it as “less of a transactional relationship”.

Desperados recently teamed up with Kantar for its ‘Connected Creativity’ research reflecting brand building in the creator economy. Maharaj says all its data work comes back to seeing if the team “understand the consumer” and can learn directly from them.

Maharaj defines Connected Creativity as “how the brand shows up consistently at every touchpoint”, particularly at a time when “media is becoming so fragmented”.

Culture is shifting faster than brands are.

Dom Boyd, Kantar

Dom Boyd, UK and Ireland managing director of solutions and marketing effectiveness practice at Kantar, likes to think about creativity that creates “currency and cultural vibrancy”.

For him, creator content needs to connect to the brand and also connect across culture, with Kantar’s latest BrandZ data finding brands with “high cultural vibrancy” grew nearly six times more than those with “low cultural vibrancy”.

The Connected Creativity framework was applied to Desperados’ repositioning as a ‘Beer with a Latin vibe’. The brand solidified its focus on Gen Z as its main target audience, an audience Maharaj says is “probably the most controlled generation we’ve seen” thanks to social media. Because of this, Desperados has positioned itself as “a signal to let loose”, tapping into its Latin roots.

Maharaj calls the repositioning process one of “carving out a meaningful space in a crowded category”, with influencers instrumental to this as she argues Gen Z sees creators as an “authentic truth source”.

For the Desperados campaign, the creative was “co-created” with two music producers/influencers and nail artist influencers, all of whom had creative control.

“The key is how to find authentic spaces that are meaningful to our consumer to differentiate our brand. So, nails – yes, it’s niche. But to the Gen Z consumer, it’s actually really important,” Maharaj explains.

Boyd reiterates the importance of using creators to connect to culture.

“The challenge has always been to operate at the speed of culture and to shape culture. The way of doing that most easily is through creators,” he states. “Culture is shifting faster than brands are.”

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According to the Kantar research, character/personality, creative idea, message, logo and colours are the top connectivity drivers in brand-led channels.

When it comes to branding creator content, Boyd says there are certain “hygiene factors”, such as mentioning the brand in audio and having the brand present in the first five seconds of a video. His biggest takeaway from the research is that three quarters of creative content doesn’t connect to brand but, when it does, the performance of the brand is 64% stronger.

According to Maharaj, when content is over-branded “people fall off” due to a lack of authenticity, meaning creators working with Desperados are given license to link to the brand in the ways which resonate most with their audience. Data points to the success of this approach.

The beer’s latest creator campaign was found to be “at least 2.5 times more effective” with regards to ROI, versus the previous campaign where the team had “all the right branding in the right places”.

Additionally, native creator content led to a 27% increase in brand recall, while Maharaj reports the campaign performed strongly for long-term brand building and short-term sales potential.

The brand DNA

When it comes to managing all three brands on social media, Maharaj keeps the “individual brand DNA” at the heart, meaning briefs and social strategies are executed differently for each. Measurement of success on social media is based around “brand power” and brand salience, relating to how meaningful the brand is.

For example, with Amstel aimed at Gen Y, football is the focus for partnerships and creative. Creators are used to “promote equality and diversity” around the theme of “unification”.

When it comes to Tiger, the platform is “about courage and the boldness to live life the way you’d like to”, with a focus on “championing boldness”.

In terms of platforms, strategies are shaped according to “where consumers are engaging”, for example on TV and digital for the football-driven Amstel brand. Content for each brand focuses on storytelling and is tailored for the specific platforms.

“[As a result] You’re creating more assets, more pieces, but then they work harder, they’re more effective and they are more engaging to your audience,” says Maharaj.

As a marketer, you have far less control. It’s quite exciting for me though, because the creativity that comes out of this space is far more expansive.

Natasha Maharaj, Heineken

Going forward, Boyd sees the next frontier of influencer marketing being about the “scaling up” of influencer work, to involve more creators in campaigns. He also sees an increasing need for brands to be “coherent” with creator work.

“Consistency is important in your advertising, including your social. But for creators you need to be coherent and it’s fine not to be consistent. Together, what we’ve seen is, when you do that, they work together beautifully and that’s what builds brand equity, with the strong caveat that there’s still a lot of headroom for being better,” says Boyd.

Looking broadly, Maharaj sees marketing in the drinks market as moving away from being “curated from the brand perspective”, with even more creative license being given to influencers.

“As a marketer, you have far less control. It’s quite exciting for me though, because the creativity that comes out of this space is far more expansive than the [celebrity] endorser strategy,” she says.

“I’m quite excited, but it’s going to be quite tricky for marketers because that sense of control is going to become even less for us in the branding business.”

ROI will continue to be an indicator of success, particularly as media moves to be more “fragmented”. Embracing tech changes, including AI, will also help brands be “more effective”, scale faster and be “more agile”, Maharaj adds.