At the beginning of summer 2021, social life was in danger. Less than 30% of people got their vaccine. A 10% minority of outspoken anti-vaxxers influenced 40% GenZ and millennials into delaying the shot. The government pro-vaccine communication was mostly bland and ineffective. To achieve herd immunity, Heineken had to swing the undecided by launching a controversial provocation that no antivaxxer would ignore. The angrier the antivaxxers got, the more the press wrote about it and the more undecided people it reached.

2021 started with great news for social life, bars and clubs everywhere: a vaccine had been approved! This means the 2021 summer would be a banger, right?

Wrong.

While the most vulnerable were taking the first shots, a growing antivaxx community became louder and more aggressive in spreading misinformation and paranoia. By the time it was the young’s turn for the vaccine, 40% of gen z and millennials became undecided. They wanted to “wait and see”. Government pro-vax communication was bland and ineffective and global brands avoided as much as possible in taking a side.

Not Heineken.

Summer 2021 will be awesome. For the vaccinated.

While the most vulnerable were taking their shots, a 10% minority of outspoken anti-vaxxers influenced 40% GenZ and millennials into delaying the shot. That’s because the press was covering more of the antivaxxers speech than the bland and ineffective pro-vaccine communication coming from the governments.

At the beginning of summer, there were less than 30% vaccinated and the numbers were not advancing. Summer social life was in danger.

To achieve herd immunity, we had to swing the undecided.

One thing is sure about antivaxxers: you can’t change their minds. But the angrier they got, the more the press coverage they got and the more people they reached. To get to the undecided and swing them, Heineken had to launch a controversial provocation that no antivaxxer would ignore and NOT share.

The campaign consisted of portraits of a typical summer night out in the club. But we discover it’s not full of young people, but of senior citizens (some of them influencers) who are having the time of their lives, dancing to a club cover of “you Make Me feel” by Sylvester. They invite the young to take the vaccine and join them: in videos long and short, in gifs, in memes, IG posts or on Spotify with summer playlists curated by senior DJs. The antivaxxers got really angry. The press covered it. Then even more antivaxxers got angry. And even more press covered it, reaching a record audience of undecided gen z and millennials.

Antivaxxers made #boycottHeineken trend on twitter, which actually made it visible for the Pro-vaxxers, who took over the hashtag, and defended Heineken’s global stand for vaccination.

64% of under 27 said they would vaccinate after seeing the campaign.

International news outlets positively covered the campaign, praising the brand. The campaign gathered over 10 million views across social channels and free PR, all this without one euro spent on media, resulting in 4 millions of earned media. The Australian, South African and Dutch governments have written letters of appraisal for the campaign.

60% of all social conversations had a positive sentiment towards the campaign’s call to action.