Heineken officials wanted to target Millennials with a unique digital customer engagement during the holiday season. Mission accomplished.
On Nov. 30 Heineken launched The Heineken Holiday Gift xChange, which is believed to be a first-of-its-kind interactive game that allows players to keep, swap and “steal” FREE gifts (provided by Heineken) from their friends. All that’s needed for someone to get started is to text “Xchange” to 811811. The game was conceived by Heineken to drive product sales during the important holiday retail season.
“One of the things we were looking at for this campaign was we wanted to focus on the holiday season, which is the second-highest consumption season for Heineken,” Beth Freeman, Commercial Marketing Manager, Heineken USA, told Loyalty360. “We wanted to focus on working with shoppers through digital engagement. Heineken has been known for creating legendary experiences. From a customer standpoint, we wanted to bring to life that digital engagement in the store. That was what is unique about this campaign, really bringing it to the store where shoppers are every day.”
Freeman explained that Millennials are the target audience for this campaign.
“Digitally, they can share this with friends and families,” Freeman explained. “Not only did we want to target Millennials in store, but also by sharing with friends through Facebook. The campaign can be extended by inviting friends to participate in the game, so it has a different spin that can expand it.”
The game is played as follows:
One person purchases Heineken to get a game session started with the receipt
Player one creates the game session with their unique purchase code and invites three friends
Players two, three and four log in and join the game
Players are randomly positioned around the Star (virtual game board)
GAME ON!
In order from one to four, players are prompted to reveal their gift
Gift is revealed and they can choose to KEEP or SWAP it
The last player has the chance to keep his/her gift or swap the best gift from any player
Prizes include Heineken swag, $5 gift cards from popular retail stores and restaurants (example: Target, Whole Foods, Columbia, Applebee’s, McCormick and Schmicks, Morton’s Steakhouse), digital downloads, and more. One grand prize winner will win a trip to Amsterdam for four, for a Heineken Experience and tour of the production facilities.
Shoppers are invited to play multiple times through the end of December.
From a digital standpoint, Heineken researched and tested extensively before it launched the campaign.
“We’ll take learnings from this campaign, and others from the past, and we’ll talk about that as far as what’s working well,” Freeman said. “The key in this one is we worked cross-functionally with our insights team and our digital team. Up front, we wanted to make sure it was done right and be able to analyze on the back end all the different vehicles, what sort of lifts we saw. From a brand standpoint, Heineken does a great job with Millennials. The opportunity was how do you take that to the retail level. How do you engage with shoppers when they’re in the store through digital?”
Customer loyalty in the beer industry, Freeman noted, is challenging.
“Within the beer industry, if you take a look at the evolution of how many beers are coming to the category now, loyalty is very difficult,” she said. “So many brands, sub-categories. Loyalty is very difficult to achieve at this point. Those companies that will be successful at loyalty actually connect with individuals and provide an experience for that shopper. That’s when that customer becomes more loyal, when brands elevate that experience. For a brand like Heineken, if you can bring them a new experience, that’s how you can create that loyalty.”