At the 2014 World Cup, Heineken created its own World Cup Team in the Netherlands.

But in this team, the entire Orange Nation participated & played along.

11 Dutch Twitter influencers produced digital content, congregated in a physical studio every game day. They became our Heineken #TWELFTAL (a witty combination of “Twitter” and “elftal” meaning “team” in Dutch). They saw the Dutch team’s every match, providing witty, engaging, real-time commentary on all pre, during and post-game happenings. Acting as coaches and information resource with content that fans didn’t expect from an international beer brand, they encouraged all Dutch fans to create and post their own content using hashtag TWELFTAL.

Every game, Heineken’s team kicked off, but the fans and crowd soon took over, posting their own witty content. With 100.000 tweets, 81 million impressions & an interaction rate of 10% (Dutch benchmark 2%), the whole country participated in Heineken’s Orange Fever.

11 Dutch Twitter influencers produced our digital content, congregated in a studio at matches. They became our Heineken #TWELFTAL (composite word from “Twitter” and “elftal” meaning “team” in Dutch). They saw the Dutch team’s every match, providing witty, engaging, real-time commentary on all pre, during and post-game happenings. #TWELFTAL became the nation’s coaches, facilitators and information resources and producing content that fans didn’t expect from an international beer brand. It was an ideal way for Heineken, as a non-sponsor, to create buzz. We supplemented Heineken’s #TWELFTAL posts via paid advertising with the remainder of buzz emanating entirely from earned media.

Within 30 minutes of the first Dutch match, #TWELFTAL became a trending Twitter topic and campaign participation exceeded all expectations. Content went viral every subsequent match, inspiring social users to create their own #TWELFTAL posts across Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Bloggers adopted #TWELFTAL, sparking further online conversations, thousands of likes and enormous earned media attention. PR value for #TWELFTAL totalled 3.5 million euro with Heineken linked to it all! (Paid/earned ratio = +35!)

And over 100,000 tweets and 81 million impressions on Twitter and TV coverage reached 9.1m viewers on one program – greater than 80% of the Dutch population.