Heineken's Commercial

Heineken has been a very renown pale lager producer and supplier for a long time. It all started back with 22 year old Gerard Adriaan Heineken who purchased the Haystack Brewery and renamed it Heineken in 1864. Heineken didn’t aim to make a different type of beer they aimed to perfect it. Heineken was doing well for itself but then in 1933 Heineken was the first imported beer to reenter the U.S. after prohibition, this really set them ahead of the game, especially against its competitors like Corona. Then in 1942 Alfred Heineken, who was the grandson of Gerard Heineken, became part of the company and was then later assigned to be the Chairman of the Executive Board at Heineken International. Alfred had very good skills in marketing and oversaw the design of the red star signature that is on the green Heineken bottle. He also brought about many different innovations for Heineken in his time with the company.

Throughout time Heineken has been a very successful company and they have held close to their values. Heineken’s value proposition is aimed to provide good quality beverages, consistency with their brand, and connecting with their heritage. They have done a great job at being consistent with their brand by using the green bottle, the signature red star, and the A-yeast that they use in their drinks. They try and provide good quality drinks by using their A-yeast formula so that their beer can have a better quality and consistent taste.

Heineken has really tried to bring people together through their pale lager beer. They even got praised for their Worlds Apart ad that they released last year. Though they did a marvelous job last year that apparently was not the case this year.

In late March, Heineken released their "Sometimes, lighter is better" commercial. Now, a couple of facts about this commercial, according to Ad Age’s article "How did this happen? Behind Heineken Light's 'Lighter is better' Ad Mistake", it states that this commercial was aired in Europe as far back as summer of last year 2017. It aired in places such as Ireland, and got little to no backlash, but days after being released here in the U.S. it got immediate uproar. Statements calling it “terribly racist” were surfacing all over. Chance the Rapper, released a series of tweets on Twitter stating how racist Heineken’s commercial was. While Heineken was getting all the backlash from many consumers, theirs stock did decrease according to MarketWatch. Not nearly as much as other times in the year but it did steadily decrease during the time the commercial was aired in the U.S. and after the commercial was removed it did begin to increase once more.

So much uproar was caused that Heineken’s U.S. division had to remove the commercial from television, their website, and the internet. Heineken apologized and stated to BBC News “While we feel the ad is referencing our Heineken Light beer, we missed the mark, are taking the feedback to heart and will use this to influence future campaigns”.

In my sincerest opinion, I did watch the commercial and I did not understand what the commotion was. I had to watch it a second time in order to capture what everyone was talking about. Though I do understand how this commercial could be perceived as racist, I do feel that since it was released in other countries for a long time and did not get actual backlash, I think it was blown a bit out of proportion. Though racism is a big deal, I feel that Heineken did not put this commercial out to be malicious. I think it really was something that they thought worked in other countries so they assumed it would work in the U.S. as well. If I was on their marketing team I think I would have followed their strategy as well, just because even though the commercial was not intended to offend people, it takes accountability for the fact that it did offend others.

What do you think about this? Did you find anything surprising? What are your thoughts on this commercial?

References:

1. https://www.theheinekencompany.com/About-Us/Our-History
2. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://heinekenusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Heineken-growth.jpg&imgrefurl=http://heinekenusa.com/about-us/company-history/&h=392&w=1000&tbnid=P0kSVoyLHOW8cM:&q=heineken+history&tbnh=83&tbnw=214&usg=AI4_-kQ5vSnZ7aD0gA9Cd9zzxcTMG3A9GQ&vet=12ahUKEwi2r4jZ0pbeAhVEITQIHUOgCS0Q9QEwAHoECAUQBg..i&docid=dL7jwQofiDoUWM&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2r4jZ0pbeAhVEITQIHUOgCS0Q9QEwAHoECAUQBg
3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-heineken-bottles-were-square-62138490/
4. https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/heineken-light-s-lighter-ad-mistake/312887/
5. https://www.heinekencollection.com/stories/heineken-timeline/
6. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/03/27/heineken-pulls-lighter-better-commercial-after-some-call-racist/461395002/
7. https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/heia?countrycode=nl&mod=MW_story_quote
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_u_-OD1_z0
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKggA9k8DKw