Heineken’s The Great Brew Fest

360º Campaign

Plot
Sambal Lab bring together the disciplines of brand strategy, public relations, and experiential and digital activation to produce real and Visible Brand Actions™ to ‘elevate the beer culture’ in Malaysia in this 360º campaign for Heineken Malaysia.

Later when interviewed by a reporter who thought that there is already a beer drinking culture here, Heineken Malaysia Marketing Director Jiri Rakosnik would say: ‘There is a photograph of Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and former Czech president Václav Havel sitting in a pub in Prague, and that was their meeting place. When you sign big deals and have major meetings over a beer, then you have a beer culture!’.


Performance
RM2,523,011 in Total-Media PR Value or returns of 3,523%, from 286 clippings.

RM638,763 in PR Value from intimate media sessions alone, at a RM5,000 budget.

4,463,000 mL in Total Consumption.

2,129 Total Mugs Sold.

Sambal Lab’s comprehensive outlet-by-outlet post-evaluation revealed how the 360º campaign lacked big outlets to drive volume; nearly 40% of the outlets were not suitable, meaning there is plenty room for even higher volume sales.


Critical Response
The Robb Report, the American lifestyle magazine for the affluent, covered the beer festival, practically unheard of for a non-luxury product like beer.

In mainstream media, the focus on the name ‘Brew’ selling the ‘quality craftsmanship‘ story successfully avoided any political or religious backlash like ones experienced in 2017. Year 2018 reported some negative media sentiments on Oktoberfest but none near the Great Brew Fest. Without any association to Oktoberfest, media confidently and clearly featured the campaign name.

In digital media, the agency’s Facebook and Instagram strategies scored a cumulative reach of over 4 million and more than 5,000 new followers. The online audience had started responding to the event page two weeks ahead of the event. The highest performers were posts of the Mugshot consumer contest and the limited edition designer Festival Mugs.

Anticipating high profits to be made from the attractive limited edition festival mugs, many outlets priced them too high for consumer purchase. Even then, by the third week of activation, roving outlets had ran out of stock.