In Finland, journalists have managed to keep their integrity and the line between advertising and marketing is pretty clear.

Heineken Open Source Stage worked on open source principles and Facebook 'liking'. We managed to get our own application on the festival’s website for the program creation. Anybody could suggest anything and any suggestion could be Facebook 'liked' by anybody. We helped the creation get on the right tracks with a couple of our own ideas and our own “headmaster DJ”, who promoted the most interesting suggestions. People’s suggestions and 'likes' were seen in their Facebook feeds, which boosted the hype. We also did Facebook advertising and print advertising in hipster lifestyle magazines for the creation phase. At the actual festival the stage was placed next to the main stage for visibility and easy access. The acts performed between bands on the main stage.

We sold 20,000 bottles of beer at a premium price. We also gave out a significant amount of free beers to invited guests. So, there was direct sales results and most importantly, we reached a big proportion of urban influencers in one of the smallest populations in Europe. In their minds, Heineken is now classed in the same group of brands with Marc Jacobs and Comme des Garcons. The main newspaper of each city wrote about the concept and the PR effect in the local media was way beyond the media budget of Heineken Finland.