This paper demonstrates how the first global campaign for the worlds' most international beer brand built premium values from Lagos to Warsaw and became more valued - and valuable -as a result.

Heineken is available in 170 markets around the world. But although people everywhere bought into one product, they didn't buy into one brand.

The difficulties of appealing to everyone, everywhere in the same way were obvious. But the dangers of not doing so were also apparent. In very different markets Heineken was coming under pressure as never before. And the cost of inaction had the potential to be severe. Heineken knew that a profitable future meant maintaining a consistently premium image. Everywhere. To grow globally Heineken needed to think globally as a brand for the very first time.

Heineken's three objectives were to:

1. To grow volume and value share; not trading-off one for the other

2. To sustain a price premium

3. To launch a global campaign that would create premium, desirable, differentiated brand values.

This couldn't just happen in one market, it had to happen across all Heineken's markets.

The strategic solution was both difficult to get to and deceptively simple. Heineken had become the McBeer of the category - bought by many but celebrated by few. But at the same time, the brand's internationalism was its defining characteristic.

We decided to embrace Heineken's globalism rather than deny it.

With its entrepreneurial Dutch roots, Heineken had always looked beyond its own small world to bigger horizons. And the brand's global consumers were similarly eager to feel like the guy who knew his way around. The task for Heineken's first global campaign, through W+K Amsterdam, was to elevate the brand by elevating the drinker. By turning him into a Legend.

The creative idea became 'Surprising demonstrations of Legendary behaviour'.

Despite the campaign's relative youth, we have demonstrated payback at a global level. Across three very different types of market the campaign has proven premium, distinctive and desirable; it has had a positive impact on volume and value share; it has maintained a price premium and, after factoring out other influences, we estimate that it has already paid back globally between €1:1.3 and €1:8.1, depending on market type.

Truly legendary results for a campaign designed to have an impact in extraordinarily different places.