Meet Heineken FOBO: the forwardable bottle, that doesn’t get trashed nor is ‘just’ a returnable. By renaming we instantly got rid of the backward looking old fashioned idea of returnable bottles and started looking forward.

The FOBO has a unique bottle shape and a distinctive embossed branding principle that will start to get scuffed over time. The more it scuffs, the whiter it becomes, the more it will stand out, the more attractive it gets.

But there is more … in the white screenprinted area each bottle has an unique code. Via fobo.fr consumers can see where that particular bottle has been, what it experienced, which special cool night, or which surprising encounters it witnessed. And you can add your own message to forward to the next consumer, as a chapter of the connected story chains. Each bottle part of the Heineken future that we will build story by story.

We created a completely new bottle shape to underline the new forward thinking, without placing it in another category; it’s still lager beer, and not water, juice or olive oil.

The hero is not a label, but the large embossing. And the embossing will start to get scuffed over time. The more it scuffs, the whiter it becomes, the more it will stand out, the more attractive it gets.

In the white screenprinted area each bottle has a unique etched code. Via fobo.fr consumers can see where that particular bottle has been, what it experienced, which special cool night, or which surprising encounters it witnessed. And you can add your own message to forward to the next consumer, as a chapter of the connected story chains.

Heineken FOBO is still brand new, so no real big numbers yet. But first results in France are very promising. It’s been launched Summer 2016 in hip and premium bars in Paris and other big cities across the country, and the take up has been above expectation. Very positive feedback from bar owners, press and consumers.

It clearly underlined the leadership and innovative drive of the Heineken brand: this is a real breakthrough concept with the potential to stop the decline of returnable bottles, and shift markets with one way bottles into returnable … forwardable bottles.