86% of visitors book their HEX tickets after they’ve arrived in Amsterdam, so we needed to give Men of the World (MOTW) a compelling reason to book in advance.

We teamed up with Tribal DDB to create a personalized Amsterdam experience for MOTW, offering a custom Heineken beer, brewed to be ready for the exact day of their visit to the HEX. Each personalized bottle was wrapped in an Amsterdam city guide, with insider recommendations tailored to each individual visitor’s tastes.

The idea required a lot of data to bring it to life – we needed to know travel details, interests, and demographics of possible candidates. With a finite production budget, we couldn’t capture every MOTW – so we analyzed seasonal travel patterns to identify the countries that most Amsterdam travelers come from. Finding the best sources of this data and ensuring it was addressable was half the battle!

We employed dynamic creative to develop 471 variations of the creative copy based on MOTW’s interests, point of origin, and language so that everyone we reached received a message bespoke to them. The campaign was deployed across key markets - UK, Ireland, US, Germany, Italy and Spain.

To dynamically deliver creative with the necessary data signals, we looked to digital travel network partners that had a variety of travel-based targeting. Then used 3rd parties to add behavioral data to reach the MOTW sub-segments.

With a paid media budget of only €37K this campaign was about laser sharp focus to deliver 0% wastage – only targeting the right consumers that would be ripe for the experience, with as much scale as possible to maximize qualified HEX traffic.

The campaign is still live… but despite the small budget, we’ve managed to deliver over 3.6M impressions to our qualified consumer pool - reaching 390K MOTW 18-35 travelling to Amsterdam between 3rd – 23rd April.

32% of bookers converted to the Facebook Messenger Chat Bot, where they could further engage with Heineken and build excitement ahead of their trip – and 80% of those conversations completed the designed chat experience. This meant that we were reaching the right audience with media, but more importantly, that we could deliver more robust, customized experiences to our MOTW HEX travelers.

We’ve already exceeded our target of 300 unique transactions - selling over 600 tickets for the campaign, and ultimately, giving over 600 Men of The World a unique Amsterdam experience that only Heineken could deliver.

The Heineken HEX campaign is data-driven from end to end – media owners were strategically selected based on their ability to provide relevant data inputs, including travel dates and booking locations. Additional targeting layers ensured only the right audiences in that broader pool received messaging (based on 3rd party behavioural and demographic data). Additional consumer data refined the messaging… and ultimately drove the final, exciting, tangible consumer takeaway – a customized map of Amsterdam with their name on their new favourite beer of choice.

Using data signals, we segmented the Men of the World audience into three Personas: Now Pioneers, Refined Rebels and True Originals. We worked with programmatic travel partners to layer airline and hotel booking data to only reach confirmed Amsterdam travelers. We also leveraged Paid Search to capture any post-view interest and direct users to bespoke sites where they could book their HEX tickets.

Users could personalize their city guide further by engaging with Heineken on Facebook messenger and telling us more about their interests.

But the ultimate payoff came when the MOTW finally arrived in Amsterdam – all they had to do was complete their visit to HEX to pick-up a custom bottle of Heineken, with their name and point of origin printed on the label to commemorate their experience. As the birthplace of Heineken, their custom city guide further ensured the rest of their Amsterdam experience was epic.

The Heineken Experience (HEX) is one of Amsterdam's most renowned attractions, taking visitors on a journey through the past, present and future of Heineken leaving them with an even deeper connection with the brand as they walk out of the door. But there's always room for more visitors. And to build brand love with the consumers identified as key targets for the brand, we wanted to find those specific ‘Men of the World’ to get them through the doors of the Heineken Experience – via the perfect, customized incentive.