Close your eyes and picture a Heineken. Bet it was a green bottle, wasn’t it? While Heineken Lager is a household name in the United States, it's not often associated with cans. This becomes a hurdle during the key summer selling season. After all, glass isn’t even allowed at most pools, beaches and patios. The brand’s can format not only had low awareness, but lacked relevance. And with the marketplace cluttered with options for beer and seltzer drinkers trying to own summer, Heineken needed to capture the attention of those who were about to get out and enjoy countless occasions better suited for cans than bottles. In addition to driving buzz, the activation had to further Heineken’s goal of becoming the most innovative and exciting beverage company by the year 2023, while increasing household penetration during the hottest months of the year for beer sales.

Introducing the Heineken B.O.T. (Beer Outdoor Transporter). Wherever you go, your cans of Heineken will follow. The interactive robot was designed to make it easier, and way more entertaining, for beer drinkers to take a load off (literally) as they enjoyed the epic summer.

The B.O.T. uses autonomous follow technology to follow its owner with up to 12 cans of beer and effortlessly moves around large objects, spins in circles and responds to voice commands. It can be programmed through its touchscreen display or in a smart phone app. With a charming personality and a splash of sass, it’s pre-programmed with ten different phrases including “Have no fear, I’m full of beer,” “Let’s roll,” and “If I had arms I would cheers you right now.”

The fully functional robots created a highly visual and desirable focal point for our summer marketing efforts.

After missing out in 2020, Americans were eager to enjoy summer. But research showed a significant portion of our 21- 35-year-old target audience remained somewhat cautious, with outdoor activities expected to boom because they were safer. All the more reason Heineken needed to be part of the summertime scene.

At the heart of our strategy was a core truth: after a summer of COVID-related cant’s in 2020, we wanted to celebrate a summer of cans. Can go to the pool, can go to a picnic, etc. We zeroed in on the fact that actually transporting your beer during summer adventures is often a challenge in itself. If you’ve ever tried to look cool while lugging a full cooler by yourself, you can probably relate. So, how could we solve this problem in a way that would make Heineken cans central to the fun moments of summer 2021?

Available for consumers to win during key summer moments, the limited-edition B.O.T.s served as the centerpiece of an integrated campaign that included ??digital and social content, influencer partnerships and media relations.

Irresistible photos, videos and GIFs introduced the robots to the world via earned and social media, while influencers ranging from professional BMX riders and surfers to comedians created content showing them hanging with the B.O.T. in summer settings. We even took its charming A.I. personality to Tinder via paid integration, generating a ton of love from fans. The buzz around the launch drove people to HeinekenBOT.com for a chance to claim one, with additional giveaways via social media throughout the summer season.

From the streets of New York City, to outdoor summer gatherings and social feeds everywhere, more than 40 B.O.T.s made their way into lucky fans’ summer plans.

Heineken® Original 12-pack can volume grew +12 percent in off-premise sales during the B.O.T. activation versus 2020, outperforming the total category that was down -10 percent during the same period. Additionally, Heineken® Original 12-pack cans accelerated growth +7 points during the B.O.T. activation versus pre-campaign (5% --> 12%).

The spike in sales of Heineken cans was driven by more than 700 media stories and 1.7 billion earned impressions (a record for the brand). On social, more than 3,500 earned social posts and 351,000 engagements came with 99 percent positive or neutral sentiment. And the brand’s introductory B.O.T. post on Instagram outperformed the brand’s average by 15 times. All of this attention resulted in more than 250,000 visits to HeinekenBOT.com, with an average time on site of nearly four minutes.

The runaway success led to 23 additional countries adopting the activation.