To maintain premium positioning, the campaign focus was the correlation between the world’s premium international beer, and Rugby’s premium international event; the best, delivering the best.

This lens filtered all strategic and executional components the fully integrated campaign required to capitalise on the opportunity.

Understanding consumer, shopper and trade audiences, tailor-made initiatives were developed to drive sociability and theatre, allowing Heineken to dominate a highly competitive market.The scale of the tournament required activations to pulse throughout the year, delivering first mover advantage before culminating in mass presence during the tournament.

Heineken’s sponsorship of the 2011 RWC was successful across all measures.Perceived level of sponsorship of the tournament increased from 36% in January to 52% in October catapulting it into No.1 position.44% more Heineken sold vs previous year (stadium volume accounted for 3%)7% YOY volume growth in declining beer category.1.3% share increase in growing Premium Beer segment.Consumer promotions delivered 5.2% increase in scanned retail sales pre-tournament.Heineken regained the spot as NZ's most popular beer.Heineken established its position as No.1 international beer brand in NZ.