Over recent years, alcohol consumption in Australia has declined by an average of 14.5%, and by up to 48% in some demographics (Nielsen). And every year, many Australians commit to consuming no alcohol for ‘Dry July’. This has created a growing interest in low-alcohol and no-alcohol beers.

To encourage these health-conscious Aussies to choose Heineken’s alcohol-free beer Heineken 0.0 for Dry July and drive ongoing sales for the second half of the year, Heineken wanted to drive awareness and sampling of the beer in bars and clubs.

But then the Covid pandemic hit Australia and the government enforced a closure of bars and clubs to minimise human contact, removing Heineken's primary distribution channel.

We needed to develop a new way (very quickly) to provide sampling outside of licensed premises that would be Covid-safe and drive broader reach through PR and mainstream news media.

The Heineken Zer0.0 Contact Bar was a pop-up bar on a main street of Sydney serving samples of Heineken 0.0 beer in an innovative ambient experience. With zero contact.

But it was a bar like no other. In a converted shopfront, two industrial robotic arms were programmed to activate when a sensor detected a customer at the window counter. One arm activated a conveyor from the chill room to deliver a Heineken 0.0 to the other arm which served the sample beer to the customer. The two robots, affectionately named Heidi & Ken, also entertained customers with dance moves and high-fives.

The robots were developed in collaboration with the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Australia's leading university.

This stunt enabled zero-contact Covid-safe sampling of the beer for consumers during a nationwide lockdown of bars, while also delivering on the Heineken 0.0 brand proposition of ‘Now You Can’.

The target audience for Heineken 0.0 is inner urban professionals, aged 24-40. This audience responds to international brand names, are early adopters of technology, and aspire to a healthier lifestyle without compromising their pursuit of experiences.

A local bar featuring robots serving alcohol-free beer from an international brand during a statewide closure of bars was the perfect solution. And entirely Covid-safe.

To drive footfall, two weeks of social media content featured the robots serving Heineken 0.0 and informed of the opening date.

To maximise reach and appeal, mainstream news media were offered exclusive access to the bar's interior and the lead robotics engineer for one-on-one interviews on the launch day.

With the dramatically shortened timeframe for production due to the sudden and unexpected closure of bars, we worked in collaboration with the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at Australia's leading university, the University of Sydney, to develop and program the robotic arms and integrate them into the other technologies of the installation: the sensor and the conveyor. This partnership afforded the engineering students the opportunity to make practical developments in the course of their studies.

The robotics engineers worked with our in-house installation designers and the third party installation manufacturers to ensure viability within the selected space.

The installation was built and installed in an empty shopfront (formerly a burger takeaway) on the main street of an inner Sydney suburb populated with the inner urban professional target audience of the brand. The installation was live for four consecutive days in mid July.

The Heineken Zer0.0 Contact Bar safely served a sample beer every minute for four consecutive days, and the innovative use of technology drove PR appearances of the brand and product in 145 media outlets including mainstream national and international news to reach 79 million people.

After the event, Heineken 0.0 beer sales increased +44% above target for the rest of 2020. In fact, 130% more Heineken 0.0 was sold in the six months after the stunt compared to the six months before the stunt. That’s 2.3 times the volume.

The innovative approach to sampling during Covid lockdowns drove mass media coverage of Heineken 0.0 which positively impacted retail sales and pushed the product into the top 3 alcohol-free beers in Australia (GQ, MensHealth, Choice).

As Australian consumers continue to reduce alcohol consumption year-by-year (Nielsen), particularly in the young-adult cohort, this positions Heineken 0.0 as a product of choice.