Making moderation cool | Anuraag Trikha, Heineken & Béla Ziemann, Publicis | OnBrand '17

[Music] [Music] I don't care I never you know what about that if it's right or left that oh it's a haze we can't see you know that's a good thing first of all thank you for having us on my side the show's superb and super cool and I was hearing the story of how cool this brand is been growing so it's a pleasure and an honor to be here so thank you for having us this Anna rock I'm Bailey I'm not sure if everybody check the pictures from the wards but just to make sure we all right make moderation cool anorak Tammy livid bye why would you come up with such a crazy idea I mean you want to serve beer at the same time you're trying to push moderation I mean right so so by the way the caveat is this is a child okay the the original idea was gonna be a fireside chat there was gonna be a fireplace here and it's gonna be a big rug and that didn't happen so we're gonna still try and have a chat so you can kind of listen in and be part of this chat so I think the reason why I think this idea was very powerful when we first thought about it is because when you think about ourselves as a as a brewer and as a walk as a marketeer of a alcohol brand you always worry about the people who abuse the use of the product and I think that's something that we have to limit on an everyday basis the excess use of our product and a lot of companies that a lot of marketers have had this problem and I think vo at one point we decided that if we are going to be the brand that is going to lead the conversation about this topic we have to address it we have to accept that this is something that we have to talk about and I think that started a journey for us to try and reframe the problem that the industry faces in this topic and I think putting a badge like cool next to the word moderation certainly as a marketeer starts to become a more exciting conversation for us to have I think that's how the journey started so I understand that by now you actually are you coming now the clicker doesn't want that doesn't want to ask me accent that the spanner has become quite a big serious business for you I mean it's it's more than just that that a lip sync you were doing yeah yeah so I think the reason I wanted to put this slide first is I've been in few conferences and I've been in can and one of the things that people think when they hear this topic we talked about Bionic and they think it's a sideshow it's something you do invisibly you know behind the scenes as a PR thing the reason I put this number here is you should look at an animal report we spend 10% of our media money behind this topic 10% and Heineken is I can't reveal the numbers but Heineken spends a lot of money around the world to market its products but when you commit to spend 10% and we've been committing to do that over the last five years it's a lot of serious investment going into promoting this point of view so I just wanted to put that stage so everything that you will hear about this conversation today is in the frame and there the lens of 10% of media spend on this on the Heineken brand gets spent on this topic I think it's good to kind of put that up front excellent now I remember when we started this five years ago moderation was still something where nobody was really talking about but by now I think we find ourselves in a world where moderation in general has become aspiration so all this health trends have led to everything has to be done at a pace at a moderation you can't even overdo sports anymore or drink too much water or do this so everything goes down this way now the problem still is though that moderation especially when around drinking has never been socialist such nobody posts on Facebook like hey I had a great sober night out so yeah exactly yeah and I think that's the problem that if you are not able to be proud of a behavior it's difficult to talk about it and the wrong people talk about it or the people who talk about it talk about it in a way which doesn't attach or attract the Millennials of the world so I think it's a it's a complex problem that you have to find an address which is and then you're a beer brand you know your social networking with the world you have to find a way of addressing this topic in a way which is social so I think that's something else that framed our thinking over the last four five years as to how to find a social solution to our topic which nobody wants to talk about excellent now what I really admires that you say hey every kind of product and every kind of service out there has some form of downside to its business I mean you cannot manufacture anything without having some form of downside to it whether used too much plastic or too much energy or whatever it is now in your case apart from using water there is not really anything in there but then the down set that you're facing is that you're facing a problem outside of the consumption I mean when when people consumer power that's where excess is coming in now how how do you deal with that or how do you dealt with that compared to other people so I think Jean Francois who's who's my CEO says it quite well eloquently and he says that you know we are not in the business of quantity we're in the business of quality and he says I don't believe that we should be the brand and the company that basically promotes excessive consumption of our products I'd rather have one person who enjoys our product versus one who over does it and I think and I think those people who are who work in Heineken brand and I'm just privileged to be one of those who's standing on the shoulders of giants has always taught us that Heineken as a brand is a progressive entrepreneurial brand in the world we were born in 1873 and we had the courage to cross our borders and now we are 192 countries of the world and I think that progressiveness is what we try and instill into this topic and in this debate and the other thing that I think we were we are very very keen on is and I'm kind of sharing with you our strategy you know in a ways that we are trying to build men up the world around the world because we believe that there is a there is a value in in being a worldly citizen of the world even if you are sitting in your own local country and I think if you want to be a man of the world you have to have certain behaviors and certain values that drive it and the way you consume the product the alcohol product is part of that story and I think that's the kind of shift that I think we are making on this topic in the company now when you look at the past one when we kind of started we really faced affirmed that everybody was especially when you store government's we're doing NGOs we're doing it but kind of more going over preaching warning hey don't do this bad consequence but then you you had that spark that idea hey we need to go over this differently I mean is that does that what's in the brand DNA we're saying no this is not our way of doing and talking about it yeah and I think I think that is a slide on the one the next one and I want to say something because there are marketers in the room sometimes you actually hear an agency planner or an agency creative say something that you love so much that you steal it and you steal it and you make it your own and then you claim it all the time so this is one of those stories where I basically saw this in a room in Paris and this guy was there and this was 2011 I think and he wrote this and he said there are no limits when you know your limits and I said wow that's super cool that would be such an amazing way to actually frame the conversation about being a moderate drinker and that actually started the the creative journey for the Heineken brand to try and make a positive statement about moderation so thanks to you but now I own it by the way yeah that's how it goes I mean our point really was when we when we looked at the world of XF consumption we always have this issue of there's a peer pressure out there people still believe they're much cooler when they're drunk and we had to frame it in a way to look at it from a positive side and what's the positive side of when you're not drunk and that's where we kind of ended up with there are no limits when you know your limits now I think what that help does this to actually get on the journey and really start getting out some communication out and and we started with the first time which was then around 2012 we said you know what to get this topic out there to get away from all this preaching and mourning that at that time was around the market we need to think about differently how can we actually encourage this quality over quantity which is the mantra of well yeah and I think and I think quality over quantity sounds cool but a little serious so we said and it's funny sorry I have a digress but I Bieber Bieber coming after NASA so I said how the how the hell do you beat that and I said to Bella so the only way I can beat that is to actually tell human stories because that's what I guess NASA misses is human stories so so if we got to try and bring it back to earth and try and sell some human stories and I think the journey on for the Heineken brand on this topic was about we put the word romance before quality over quantity so we said let's romance quality over quantity and tell a human story but there is a benefit at the end and this was done a few years ago but I'd love you guys to see what we did now I think the point what we discovered he at that point where that time we're saying when you are in control when you are drinking in moderation especially on a night out so what are your benefits I mean if you totally plastered you end up early you go home almost before bang of midnight but when you are on in moderation and kind of in control you have a much longer and possibly also more member or night and so that was our way to kind of romance if you want to quality over quantity or not just bang the message out there well shall watch family yeah let's watch it okay well this was our first film that we did this is how we launched it as part of the campaign [Music] [Music] see how so that's how he started the journey he said let's try and find a romantic conclusion to a moderate night and I think that for us was the first time that we actually said no to our own product in our own advertising and I don't think too many brands have done that and we did it for a reason because we wanted to be able to have the confidence to say we are we are so confident about this attitude change that we would want our own product to be refused for for landing the message and I think that's and I think it's thanks to my my seniors my bosses my CEO and the entire Heineken family who basically said yeah let's do that and I think I'm very privileged to be able to be part of a company that has the guts the balls the bravery and the courage to want to do that and do that consistently so I want to thank them for that but anyway that was the steps that was step one now that was a step one and that was a good start and what had also helped as it was discovering a little bit like the power of music in there isn't it having used that tune there were dippers ordering out poorly on DJ from where she was she was us know that we realized hey there is something in this whole music industry that we should further pursue and so in 2014 which ya know what's Hugh oh yeah sorry this time I think you need to go back to the slide I guess if that's ya know this film it's film director film doesn't matter in 2014 we thought hey now we've started the conversation around moderation and with that we have said a bit the pace of how could we can go on about this differently but what will be for the next step where plan was with we need to change really behavior correct correct and I think again I think when you when you listen to and you read not Theory you kind of look for small nudges of behavior change that you can kind of impact in the real day-to-day life and one of the things we discovered was that if you are going to impact the Millennials in the night which is where we know the excess happens you have to find role models in the night and DJs we knew were role models of the night people do what the DJ's want them to do and we said there might be an interesting angle to try and involve DJs as key opinion leaders to help us influence this debate and again make moderation cool so I think that kind of led us to this idea of a partnership with armin van buuren who at that time was basically trying to basically promote clean you know music loving EDM world and he was basically fighting the cause of you know the guys who come and watch my show they come to watch my music they don't come here to have access and he said that's a cool cause that we could partner with and we went to him and we said would you like to partner with us on this and he was like of course I would love to do that because this is about people wanting to listen to my music at the same time enjoying themselves in moderation with with alcohol and I think that started a partnership which got us to working with him and allowing him and working with him and seeing what he thought of the project and he actually helped us shape the project as well right remember and if I remember correctly he even created a tune for us isn't he wrote the track yeah but the the shift now is what we did differently instead of just doing a film if you want so as we did at the first instance that we went on to kind of create an activation where we wanted to really prove the impact of moderation on a night out and how it can actually better to to behavior change and that's when we did our comparing with our mean should I run it let's watch a case study of that so you'll get a sense of what we did music can provide a natural high DJ's are responsible for giving you that fine if you as a DJ are boring people need other stuff to be excited [Music] [Applause] but think if music is good people hit the dance floor and the more they dance the slower they drink [Music] that was dance motoring slow and that was the thing that we kind of produced and Armen used when he was on tour and he kind of promoted a song and he promoted the album and I think I still think Armen is still our ambassador every time he travels around the world and he plays music he kind of promotes the dance motoring slow message and again I think that's part of the cultural change key opinion leaders can bring to the table and we've got more DJ's involved and we had DJ battles and all promoting dance more bring slow we had a zero zero moment in the indian trade where at zero zero we would serve water to basically promote the message of you know zero zero and zero no alcohol moments again this is a la canopy we led the whole thing and we did it globally we did it we went from we disturbed if stuff in Brazil and Chile and because we have such a big canvas and we should do these things it really was another way of actually taking the conversation or making moderation cool further I mean that was really a cool time when that when it picked up to go travel into local markets so obviously also thanks to our mentor let's let's get behind this let's when I think it got the traction that we needed to go beyond just from a central point of view and to locally activated but we didn't we didn't stop you I said no come on we can now that we're on this journey we need to move forward so we are at this stage exactly we said hey now we have to raise our game we started a we kind of wondered which started to change behavior now where do we how can we come home from here and go from cool to sexy I think so the point was that our key target ourian's obviously always young males because there you find the problem it's to come to its greatest extent so we were wondering what is it actually for them what means sexy when where do they feel hey this is how I feel sexy and and how do they talk about this conversation as though there was an interesting yeah okay and you see what I hope you are getting the fact that we are constantly trying to find new angles to provoke and nudge and change behavior so the new the new place we went to was men and women so we said in the night alcohol promotes alcohol is drunk for social confidence and then eventually picking up a guy or a girl if you're single and kind of going and doing something else afterwards and we said there is an interesting conversation that we had about moderation let's get into that space and try and see whether we can find a interesting angle there and we started to kind of explore what is moderation mean for guys and for girls and we found some interesting differences that we thought we could explore so maybe we should show them some of that stuff yeah so we showed some interest they were done like in Paris and in London and Amsterdam but they were never meant to be for public views or hope none of the people who filmed you stop that should not be shown in public so this was something that we were doing internally to kind of understand as to what people were saying so there might be a few things you might notice here which are a little bit like risque but I'm sure you're kind of you'll ignore it you okay with that you look away yeah watch this okay let's go for that just cuz it gives you that you know swagger that a little bit of confidence you lose your inhibitions slightly relaxed more comfortable more confident a bit more into the world bit more like I would get like glamour super Cooper Sanford a person is she the judge finish October who are you come in with DCED for my son's and I'm a Kurd that's gonna fit constitutively Julia Marie so health and going to Somali I think girls don't care about your moderation or your excess as long as you can do the business then you get off this is an elevator make it cooler and it is this cutie my game cheats in pleven I think that being drunk is giving me more values and I am more interesting and I'm more clever how is the operation to that if you also like many vodka my anyway so this is real okay so we saw something like this is bizarre so then then these guys showed me what they did with the women and they asked the same question to women and listen to what they said let's watch the other one the second one the women interview I clicked there's a second video right there yeah this one the women interviewer play that Don gaps once you break Monday lies from City sure I'm more attracted to guys that are moderately drunk than drunken guys [Music] because they're really pissed and their pain in the ass no message possible made jet boots okay now make a bottom ISM janitor I would never take the job my name is even on the ass with human eyes on monkey [Music] debatable student [Music] all digital animation I hope this didn't offend anyone but this is like this is very funny for us but I think but I think it kind of told us something that was worth what putting a Heineken lens on we said let's go and tell guys that if you think that if you get drunk you're gonna get more girls you're you're dreaming and we decided so I say wait just ones like and we decided and please notice that this advertising is meant for guys not for girls so we went and targeted men and we told women to send this to their girl boyfriends and friends and we showed them this because we said moderate drinkers wanted is a message that the men must understand and we tried to make them feel stupid now most marketers would never dream of making the consumers feel stupid but we said you know that's the only way we can make them feel that moderation could be cooler if I was thinking about it so moderate drinkers wanted became our anthem and the way we executed it was in my mind a light-hearted but a belligerent slap across the face of our core target audience and I'd love you to see it [Music] where have all the good men gone and where are all the butts where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising huh isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed United toss and turn in a dream the end of the night he's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta be fresh from he's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon [Music] and I think that for us was that's our current campaign right now and again I know it's polarizing and I know there are people who kind of think what are you doing but again I think it's a kind of a point of view where you are trying to disrupt the status quo you're trying to basically provoke a conversation about this topic and I think when you are being provocative you have to risk having people kind of you know criticize you disagree with you but that's the point right if you want people to kind of make make a change in their behavior you have to kind of provoke them and I'm very proud of this work you guys did no no now we've gone a number of years kind of tracking nightlife and trying to bring moderation into that and I think the faster we went the more films we kind of produce more campaign and as we have the better we caught but then at some point is there anything else we could have time I could we have looked beyond the night lapse which could we looked into drink-driving for example is there anything and I think in the last year and a half we've been very proud and privileged to become a sponsor in the Formula One world you might have seen a few races if you would follow Formula One and we said that's that's the that's the place where we must go even further and actually push the idea that moderation can be cooled but it's not about moderation in that space which is our point of view is when you when you drive you never drink it's an absolute and and the alcohol limits in different countries are slightly different and slightly varied but we said no we have a very hard stance which is when you drive you never drink and we said let's find a space in that conversation of Formula one to make this thing a little bit more inside a bit more relevant and then we came up with this thought which is the best drivers don't drink and drive then why do you you can't argue with that you cannot argue with that logic of if the best racing drivers in the world are driving a Formula one why do you and to do that it to bring that to life we basically worked with a guy called Jackie Stewart he's a he's a world champion a Formula One racing driver but more than that he's a statesman he's a statesman for safety in Formula One he into used helmets he introduced helicopter services to take take racing drivers at the got hurt out he basically shut down a racing circuit because he thought it was not safe enough because so many of his friends had died racing in Formula One so he said let's use him as a role model and bring him in and actually help to make moderation cool in that space but do it as a homage to his life do it as a homage to his greatness but still tell a story about moderation and not drinking and driving and this is this is I guess my favorite piece of work that we've done on the brand in a long time it's nice it's true let's watch it [Music] you [Music] nothing we can be just [Music] [Applause] just for one day drinks huh no thanks I'm still driving [Music] thanks to you so so I guess that for me kind of gets us sorry somebody trying to call me excuse me that's where we are today that's where we are today right so what would be saying so he's saying this is where we are today so again we are using Formula One as a as a pedestal to promote the idea that when you drive you never drink they continue to say no to our product proudly because they feel that's a message that you must make but we keep growing our business and I think I want to say something very honest to you guys this is not social service we're in the business of brewing the best lager in the world we're in the business of delighting today yesterday they after us consumers in the world but we want them to encourage them to change behavior we want them to feel like it's worth being moderate for yourself and for your society and for your friends and it's good business for us our business is going look at our numbers the Heineken brand is growing here on your it's probably growing the fastest it's growing the last for five years so it's not bad for business and I don't have a problem saying this idea is good for business because I think brands today have the right to help shape behavior change in the world for the good because we have this case we have a scale we have the impact we are fans and I think brands like us should promote topics which are beyond just selling there so I have some numbers here I'm sure it's awesome this is some of the key nom I mean we tracked this so and for us brand preference keeps going up purchase motivation keeps going up on a topic like this because of a topic like this it's bizarre but it's true but more importantly that I feel most proud of is that we are seeing a shift in behavior in actual consumer behavior about what to think about this topic and what they would like to do moving forward and we see that metric in our bottom up all our big markets and that really excites me about the fact that the stuff that we are doing is having a making a difference and it's helping us as well as helping society in a way so I'm very proud of that and I'm very proud of the partnership we hired together I think I know our time is nearly up I'm craving for a beer I think I'm sure you throw beer as well actually you should really go and have fun but before before we leave the stage the reason I want to just make sure you kind of felt this partnership and you know sometimes Bella has been part of this journey from the get-go and I and I don't don't underestimate the power of a partnership with an agency and a planner and a creative it's it's it's it's the secret sauce without it you have nothing so you know those those marketeers who think that you know will change agencies every day and you kind of find something new and agile and young and sexy think again because along will you invest in the relationship with an agency like the agency I have which is publishes in a guy like Bella is what gets us to as far as it's got us and and I want to thank you for helping us get as far as we've got and thanks for watch your pay you know thanks for nice [Applause] [Music] you