Heineken Ignite: a project aimed at creating a memorable Heineken experience that unlocked the power and possibilities of mobile innovation and technology. The goal was to go beyond the creation of just another mobile application, think beyond the screen and find a solution that was robust, simple and needed no explanation in a nightclub setting.

Heineken Ignite, the world first smart beer bottle. It interacts with other bottles, its environment and the people around it, bringing together interaction, data and networking. The bottle uses micro sensors and wireless networking to sense the moment when a bottle is being used to say “Cheers”, people drinking or resting on the bar. The motions trigger light effects illuminating the swirls of beer, carbon dioxide and oxygen. Besides that it can be remotely controlled by specially developed DJ/VJ software, syncing the network of bottles to the music.

Heineken Ignite bottle is the first social bottle that blends human behavior and communication, club environment and interaction together with the iconic green Heineken bottle for a unique experience.

Heineken Ignite is a prototype and not a stunt, the film of our live event (shot and edited the same night) was not promoted or seeded to the public. The password protected Tumblr with the production story specially created for the press received 3.500+ visitors. The story went global and Heineken Ignite was featured on 300+ blogs.

The launch in Milan was a huge success and provided Heineken with learnings on how the prototype would perform in a real life environment amongst an audience with high standards. The concept is being optimized and based on the success of the prototype, Heineken are looking to roll it out in nightclubs in 7 of their top 25 markets by the end of 2013.

Heineken Ignite was the result of the special Spark innovation track based on start-up thinking and involving the client right from the start in all aspects from briefing to creative concept. Using a multi-disciplinary team of product designers, creative technologists and user experience designers partnering with MassiveMusic, Contagious, C10, the Global Heineken Design team and independent experts from a wide range of industries, we took a product from concept to launch in just 10 weeks.

At the end of the 10 weeks we launched the prototype of Heineken Ignite (a limited number of 250 bottles) during the Milan Design Week in Heinekens Lounge of the Future.