The film follows South Korean actor Park Hyung-Sik as he records an Instagram video with his friends at a bar, and stumbles upon some paranormal activity.

As things around a table at the bar move unassisted, the people are visibly scared. A beer mug moves across the table. A bar stool zips across the room. People scream in fear.

It is revealed that the happenings at the bar are connected to someone still working late at the office. His actions at work mirror the moving objects at the bar. He moves his coffee, the beer moves too. He moves his chair, and so does the bar stool.

A super reads, ‘A friend stuck in the office is a ghost at the bar’, followed by another that says, ‘Don’t ghost your friends’.

The film ends with Heineken’s message of #WorkResponsibly

Feeling burnt out and staying late in the office meant that after-work drinks with colleagues became a dying tradition. In fact, bar owners lamented 25% loss in revenue because workers aren’t doing post work drinks anymore.

As the first drink of the evening, Heineken was most affected by the culture of overwork. Working late meant that people were skipping post work drinks, thus skipping the main consumption occasion for Heineken.

Heineken had a role to play in protecting social life from overworking - not just from a brand purpose perspective, but it also made sense from a business perspective.

The ‘Ghosted Bar’ campaign had a global reach of 2.4 Billion, with the launch assets receiving 31 MM views on the first week alone. News and lifestyle outlets in South East Asia picked up the campaign, generating 227 pieces of coverage with an approximate PR value of USD $2M. The ‘Ghosted Bar’ experience was featured in almost every online event guide and newsletter in Singapore and Malaysia. After the ‘Ghost Generator’ was made available, users sent 12K reminders to their friends in the first 24 hours. Because users also shared their interactions online, the activation became trending topic in the #Paranormal and Haunted hashtags. The ‘Ghost Generator’ got so much traction that it was made available even after the campaign ended, so everyone can still use it to remind their friends to get out of the office earlier and share a beer with them.

Ghost and paranormal activity stories have always attracted South East Asian audiences. The genre created a great number of works in folklore, film, literature, animation, and even documentaries. Almost every country in Asia has its own take on a number of ghosts, spirits, and monsters that survived centuries of tradition and now conquer the digital space as found-footage content around haunted houses, cemeteries, and other venues with paranormal activity.

But what’s really scary is that 64.5% of young people in Singapore and Malaysia have felt burned out at work. 42.5% believe work has impacted their relationships with friends and partners, and 45% have ‘ghosted’ their friends due to work commitments. However, those 'ghosting' stories are not as spread as the ghost stories found on social media accounts and channels. For that reason, a good old ‘ghost’ story was the perfect medium to spread the #WorkResponsibly message in South East Asia.