Heineken is the world’s leading premium beer brand. Available in all but five countries on the planet. Its progressive DNA and iconic brand identity provide an ongoing creative challenge: to stay true to the brand personality, to design exciting statements while the product never changes, to fit in all cultures of the world. And all of this in the context of a conventional and heritage dominated category.

An internal open innovation competition was organized within HEINEKEN to mobilize all 80.000 employees worldwide. Many of the employees “live beer” and have great knowledge about serving rituals. The winning ideas would be prototyped, developed an implemented. High-Light is one of the results of this program, and is nowadays available worldwide.

High-Light is a simple and very effective design-innovation: the moment the Heineken beer starts to flow, a light in the beer-stream lights up and makes the stream and the glass ‘shine’ to attract attention and create distinctive theatre. It doesn’t disturb the pouring ritual, is relatively cheap, can be added onto existing columns, and ideally is integrated in the tap sprout. It literally puts draught beer back in the spotlight.