Social Media Campaign Review: Heineken's New ‘Legends’ Voyage

Heineken - is the world’s most valuable international premium beer brand. Heineken was launched in India on International beer Day, August 5^th 2011, and is now widely available here. People often ask whether legends born, or made? To seek answers to this question Heineken, as part of its latest global campaign ‘Voyage’, has undertaken its most daring experiment yet. It is all about testing what men are truly made of when taken out of their daily lives and dropped into the great unknown.

Inspired by The Voyage TVC, the Dropped travel experiment, was recently released globally on the Heineken Digital channels. The film set in India, and follows 'the Legend' who loses his pet goat and lands up in all sorts of awkward and bizarre situations. Being a true Man of the World, he knows how to navigate this new world with ease, even if he finds himself in unfamiliar territory.

Objectives:

The campaign seeks to engage with audiences by involving real people in the experiment while keeping the theme aligned with Heineken’s dare to be different image and core brand values.

Execution:

The Dropped experiment takes different men from across the world and drops them in remote locations with nothing except the most basic of supplies and directions. The series ‘Dropped’ – evolves as episodes of adventures following these explorers as their travel experience unfolds.

These can be viewed at the Heineken Dropped YouTube channel. Viewers can follow each ‘Dropped’ voyage across four continents and access documentary-style content. Every ‘Dropped’ travel adventure revolves around its main protagonist who through circumstances is compelled to discover his own limits and deal with his fears.

The first episode stars Rikar, a very social bar waiter from Spain after a blindfolded helicopter ride, 6205 miles from Madrid all the way to the highest glacier of Alaska with nothing but a tuxedo, life ring and return ticket from Anchorage to Madrid.

Positives:

The highlight of this campaign is the social experiment which came to life, with viewers of each voyage being able to follow how each traveler fares through a series of travel updates and diary entries. Their final destination is “Home”. Whether the traveler makes it or not is the exciting part. This unfolds as one reaches the outcome of each Dropped encounter is completely unscripted.

The participants desire to overcome the challenges posed is perhaps the only measurement for success.  The spontaneity and realism of each adventure stands out.  Had it been scripted and stage managed the impact would have been lost.  Taking men from across the world and dropping them in remote locations brings diversity that is essential to a global brand like Heineken.

Heineken has been doing an awesome job in engaging its twitter followers.

Time to fuel up and set off on your weekend adventures! Where will you be going? #HkVoyage pic.twitter.com/f4mBLfSFvf

— Heineken India (@Heineken_IN) June 30, 2013

The campaign has good online and offline integration.  You can follow Heineken on Twitter and click here to go to their Facebook page. To view videos, subscribe to their YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/heineken

Scope for Improvement:

The campaign is well designed and implemented and there is nothing I could come up with as a suggestion to improve.

Conclusion:

Voyage, the fifth installment of the Heineken Legends campaign aimed at going beyond inspiring men to be resourceful and open to the world. Dropped is a social experiment that challenges the participant to display their true character and if they do, have a legendary travel experience.  As such the Heineken is innovative, path breaking and engaging on all fronts.