Coming out of the global pandemic, smart working became more popular. But what was meant to give workers flexibility, in reality blurred the lines between work and life, with people putting in on average an extra 7.6 hours of unpaid overtime a week. And when people don’t disconnect from work, they don’t connect with friends, only furthering the issue of burnout.

As a brand that’s built on refreshing social moments, overwork is a serious issue for Heineken. The brief was to not just talk about work-life balance, but to do something. To create a social provocation that would remind people they have the power to log off and hang out.

The creative idea was to use satire to remind people that closing down is easier than you think. So we created The Closer: a Bluetooth powered bottle opener that automatically closes your work when you open a beer with it. It’s a real device that was distributed in 48 countries.

The Closer became a way for Heineken to talk about work-life balance and remind people to #WorkResponsibly. The goal was not to make people believe that The Closer is the solution to overwork, but as a social provocation to help people see that the pressure to work all the time is getting a little ridiculous and we all have the power to log off and go hang out with our friends again.

The key message was that closing down is easier than you think. While The Closer does really exist, you shouldn’t have to need it to close your work and go hang out with your friends.

The strategy was to challenge a cultural trend — always on work culture — to refresh people’s thinking on how they approach work-life balance, with a brand action. Using cultural data from around the world, we found that pervasive work apps make people work 7.6 hours of unpaid overtime a week globally. And 7 out of 10 say they answer work messages after hours. People just don’t know when to disconnect anymore. We wanted to find an entertaining solution that would help people realize that closing down is easier than they think.

The creative would have to work globally for overworked people that are missing their social life.

The campaign launched with a satirical film that showed The Closer saving people from overwork, making it possible to socialize.

At the same time, actor and comedian Billy Eichner hosted an Appe style press conference where he unveiled the work-life balancing device. Youtuber Austin Evans (5.34M subscribers) unboxed the device on his channel.

People could get The Closer at Heineken.com/Closer. Tech parodying content showed how the device worked in the form of 3D digital videos.

Since the point of The Closer was to remind people that closing down is easier than you think, whether you have The Closer or not, social content howed funny ways to close your computer for the day.

We also turned overworkers into ads to get people to stop overworking by creating guerilla projection OOH on windows of late night workers in downtown NYC.

The Closer device was distributed in 48 countries.

150M+ earned media impressions

+40 CTR engagement

200MM impressions