Promotional efforts often have to strike a delicate balance: how far can we incentivize consumption before we erode brand equity?

We created a promotion that generated additional consumption while elevating the perception of quality and thus adding value to the product.

And we did this by outsmarting the entire category during the time when it focuses most of its activation investments.

With a witty idea, Heineken became a hot topic and dominated the conversation right after Carnaval, while investing much less than other beer brands.

If you’ve experienced Carnaval in Brazil, you know that anything goes during those 4 days.

You drink whatever is in front of you, meaning you drink warm, stale, low-quality beers that you would never drink under normal circumstances.

With that in mind, Heineken created The Heineken Green Program: a post-Carnaval, 6-step recovery program composed of the best and purest ingredients, water, hops and malt, to help you make up for all the other stuff you had to drink over the holiday.

We utilized digital media, TV and Heineken’s social platforms.

The first 200 participants could immediately redeem a limited-edition 6-pack on our website.

We launched the initiative on Ash Wednesday, the day when people look for detox programs, and sustained it over the following 4 days.

Excitement for the initiative grew was such that the client decided to invest even more than initially planned.

In a time dominated by beer brands that invest millions in Carnaval, Heineken became a hot topic:

- 40 million impacts

- 3X more comments than the official beer of Carnaval

- 46% more engagement than last year’s Carnaval

- and Heineken became the official beer of the other 361 days of the year