The Night is Young was an integrated campaign to help swing the undecided youth to take the vaccine in videos long and short, in gifs, in memes, senior influencers, Spotify summer playlists curated by senior DJs and OOH in night club areas.

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.

The antivaxxers are very vocal and reach a lot of people. In fact, while the most vulnerable were taking their shots, a 10% minority of outspoken anti-vaxxers influenced 40% GenZ and millennials into delaying the shot.

At the beginning of summer, there were less than 30% vaccinated and the numbers were not advancing quickly. 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 people they reached.

Governments vaccine communication was so bland and ineffective it didn’t even get antivaxxers angry. Heineken had to set fire to the pro vax (social media) conversation by launching a controversial provocation that no antivaxxer would ignore and NOT share.

We see 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.

Antivaxxers made #boycottHeineken trend on twitter, which actually made it visible for the Pro-vaxxers, who took over thehashtag, 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.