Part of the Asian market faces heavy restrictions on alcohol advertising on TV and out of home channels. To get its brand message across nonetheless, Heineken needed alternative ways to reach its target audience in the region. The answer lay in a combination of event activation and digital communication. In a partnership of two Dutch power brands, Heineken teamed up with event organisation ID&T to bring the world’s leading dance event – Sensation - to Asia. Heineken developed an impactful brand activation for the three Sensation events that was captured by thousands and shared with millions. In doing so, we created a unified Heineken music property for the Asian market.

People go to Sensation to have an extraordinary night out, not to be bombarded with commercial messages from sponsors. Therefore, we saw it as our role to entertain and actively involve the crowd without becoming just another irrelevant naming sponsor. Respecting our role, we created an activation that was equally impactful as it was non-intrusive. At first only visible to the crowd in the stadium, the visually stunning content it produced subsequently spread like wildfire among the target audience in the region and beyond. We set the wheels in motion – our fans took care of the rest.

The Heineken Sensation activation wasn’t just reserved for the audience at the events. It made waves online as well. Thousands of fans captured the moment on their mobile phones and shared it with their friends across the world. With over 500,000 mentions on blogs and up to a 150% increase in Heineken Facebook fans for some Asian markets, the Sensation Asia brand activation gave Heineken more than its money’s worth. Over €19.4m worth of PR value, sponsorship awareness of 74% and an estimated sponsorship return on investment of €26m, made this partnership impactful on every level for both Heineken and the audience.