Brand’s global campaign seeks to promote moderate drinking as ‘cool’ – and even features a man turning down the offer of a beer

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Heineken has launched a global ad campaign promoting moderate drinking that even features a man rejecting the offer of a beer.

The campaign, “Moderate Drinkers Wanted”, suggests that women prefer men who don’t drink too much.

Heineken’s ad, which will run on TV in selected territories and on Facebook globally, sees the women in the ad sing a rendition of the Bonnie Tyler classic I Need a Hero.

“Moderation is becoming cool,” said Gianluca Di Tondo, senior director of the global Heineken brand.

Di Tondo said that this is the third moderate drinking ad campaign Heineken has launched since 2011 and now the focus was on empowering women to encourage men to moderate their drinking.

“The focus has now turned to women and the influence they have over our target consumer,” he said. “This female-centric approach is reflected not only in the creative execution of the TV commercial, but also in our media strategy. For example, the commercial will be seeded to women only on Facebook for the first week of our launch.”

Heineken, who for the first time in 20 years paired a female sidekick with James Bond in its ad to promote the latest film Spectre, said that 10% of its annual global brand ad spend now goes on responsible drinking campaigns.

The brewer said that the strategy comes after research that shows that the younger generation of millennials are much more conscious of drinking than their forebears.



For example, Heineken’s global research, conducted by Canvas8, found that 75% of millennials (21- to 35-year-olds) say they now limit the amount of alcohol on the majority of their nights out.

The ad campaign was created by ad agency Publicis Italy.