Heineken – Tastebuddies

Starting Point

In 2010 Heineken became the main sponsor of Flow Festival in Helsinki. Flow is an established get together of 50.000 hipsters that are very allergic to all sponsorship and branding. Our goal was to come up with something that would make it to the official program of Flow.

Idea

Lock two designers from very different backgrounds inside a container. Give them a visual brief and 30 minutes to invent a new product. At the festival, the ideas would be illustrated live on stage by Dutch illustrator Parra.

This event idea made a foundation for Heineken campaign. Before the event there were radio interviews of the designers, a Tastebuddies fanzine, a blog and a Facebook event. At the festival the container was placed next to the main stage. We built a bar in front of it, so people could sip beer, sit on sofas and see the designers inside the container. We set a multi-camera broadcast unit that shot footage for the event and online documentaries. After the event the documentaries were posted on the Tastebuddies blog and on YouTube.

Results

A snowmobile / bicycle called the Bi-tractor; a female-symbol shaped fan called The Family Hot Fan and a really big cutlery for the broken hearted by the name Eat Me Sad. We made it to the festival programme and reached 250 000 people. The Finnish hipsters seemed to have a great time and engaged with the brand. From a single event Heineken sales grew more than targeted and we produced a new of campaign with a tons of right kind of attention for the brand in Finland.