The Heineken Champions League Event

Explenation of what is is:

Heineken Italy created a project dedicated to calling relevance to Heineken-UEFA Champions League sponsorship. The unique program, focused on males age 18 to 24, created a fake event of poetry and classical music to take place on the same night as the big match, Real Madrid versus Milan.

Using a unique personal approach to convince 1000 fans of AC Milan to skip the huge contest, which was slated for October 21 2009, and attend the make believe event instead, the agency used girlfriends, chiefs, and journalists to help recruit and convince the victims into attending. All of these people were provided invitation cards and Direct Mails and Poster campaigns were also utilized.

On the night of the match Heineken and organized an event mixing classical music and poetry called “ the Schnuren performance”. Together with 200 accomplishes ( bosses, girlfriends and even journalist) Heineken set up 1000 AC Milan fans. The accomplices where given two free cards to the concert en where persuaded to let their targets skip the match. During the set up the targets where filmed.
Heineken arranged the event to be in the auditorium of Milan and to promote this big event they used radio and posters. Off course Heineken didn’t reveal its own identity.

At the night of the match the concert started the whole event was filmed.  This film was broadcasted live on Sky sports in Italy.
The concert began and classical music was played by a live orchestra together with poetry that appeared on a big screen above the musicians.
After 15 minutes, some hints were given, and the trap was revealed. The orchestra began to play the theme tune of the champions league and the big poetry screen changed into the live match.

AIDA Analysis

Below an AIDA analysis of the Heineken poetry event will be provided. Each aspect of AIDA (Attract/Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Act) will be discussed.

Attract

In front of the match Heineken contracted accomplishes. These were all people which were somehow connected closely to the target group.
To promote the event Heineken used viral marketing such as Facebook, radio and posters. Heineken persuaded the accomplices to convince their target group to cancel the match.

Interest

The viral marketing campaign was focused on males ( AC-milan fans) between 18-24. They are getting older, so duties and responsibilities put at risk their sacred beer moments with friends. To gain interest Heineken arranged an intellectual event which combines poetry with classical music. This event was choses wisely because almost every football fanatic would choose football above this event.
Next they tracked down their target group using accomplishes. The accomplishes then convinced the target group to take responsibility and say no to the match.

Desire

Heineken chose football fans because they know most football fans would consider a champignons league match as a sacred event. Watching football with your friends together with some beers is priceless and the only thing that can take it away from you are you’re responsibilities. For this particular target group the event organized will be seen as boring, so the desire to watch the match is even bigger ( the contrast between the match and this event is big).

 

 

Tool

Heineken organized one event. Therefore the interaction between Heineken and target is quite simple. On the other hand, to organize this event, Heineken had to use different actors. To get a logical overview of all the actors involved, we chose to use a system map. This gives a visual description of the event, and shows what actors are involved and what their tasks are. It also shows what media is used to organize this event.
system map

Media

Poster

– Awareness
– Credibility
– Engage target
-Provide information

Specific
– Easily created
-Visually strong
– Reaches a wide audience
– cheap
– Accessible for everyone

Direct E-mails

-Involvement
-providing information
-Credibility
-Engage target
-accesible

Specific
-approachable
-Can be persnonal and global at the same time
-popular
-easy

AIDA analysis:

Attention

Posters en e-mails easy awake attention. Posters can provide some global information which can draw your attention really quick. A quick look is already enough to create interest. A posters credibility is high, a wide audience can be reached and the visual design makes the poster attractive.
An e-mail is very personal and will most defenitly draw your attention. It’s a very flexible platform, al sorts of info can be provided using e-mail. An e-mail gives the target a feeling of involvement.

Interest
Interest for a poster is created by it’s attractiveness and it’s surounding and interest for in e-mail is instantly avoked.

Desire
The desire
The targets participating desire that the event is cancelled. They hope it does not exist.
But by using e-mails and posters the credibility of the event is high.
Now they hope it is a cool event, but looking at the poster and the e-mail the desire to contribute to this event is gone. But they have no choice, they will go to this concert any way

Act

The poster and Email provide the neccesary information for the event. They also contribute to the credibility of the event. The target hopes this event will be cancelled, but because of the credibility all hope is lost.

Media Characteristics

Once a poster is printed there is no way back. It;s possible to create posters which have a different designbut do provide the same information. This way it’s possible to attracht differnt target groups, and even attract more attention
E-mails can create a bond between target and creator. THis way the target is more involved thru the project/event.They can inform you whenever you want to be informed and are very accesible.

Physical Location

Physical locations

Communication goals:

–       Powerful, immersive experiences
–       Stimulates users generate content
–       Feeds word-of-mouth marketing
–       Engages spectators to participate
–       Generates media attention
-Increases perception

Specific qualities

–       Relative easy to set up
–       Reality creates the most powerful experience
–       Allows target audience the physically meet one another
–       Offers flexibility in the form of interaction
–       Allows for the generation of user content
–       Brings target group together

AIDA analysis

Attention
Organizing a event in the Auditorium of Milan realy gives the event status and credibility. It also makes the meeting intellectual and big. Because the location is very popular, the event draws a lot of attention

Interest
Because of the Auditoriums image the whole event becomes intellectual and gives the target a feeling of status. This image really helped by convincing the targets to let the match go.

Desire
The Auditorium is a very chique place to be so the desire is generated. The comfort of the location and the image all provide a more desired event.

Act
The location asked for the targets to dress up nicely. Because of this chique image, they showed as if they liked the peformance. The act could also work on this location because so many people would fit in this parlor. When the event appeared to be fake, the location transformed, and the audience could enjoy the match of football in a very comfortable way.

Media Characteristics
Location based experiences are relatively easily created and provide powerful, immersive experiences that allows participants to be part of a story. This stimulates the production of user-generated content, which can be shared via social media platforms. Large events, such as organized for the Heineken champions league event, also generate massive media attention. Organizing gatherings and stimulating participants to work together also generates strong, engaged communities.

Identity and Visual design.
The poster of the event looked very professional.As you can see in the movie it’s called the Schnurer peformance and it shows of great inttelectual appearence.It is well adapted to the location and the activity.

Summary
Numbers:
6.6 Million people watched the event live on sky sport
10 million people saw the event on the news
over 5 million unique visitors on the web.

Heineken created a new identity. They put themselves down as the real beer brand, who can do something back for their target.  They show compassion, and they know that it’s difficult to take your responsibility sometimes. When you gome home today and you think about drinking beer, you think of Heineken and this funny event. That is exactly what they want. The have reached a big croud, by an relatively simple event. It’s known and prized al over the world.

What can we use in our project?
The most inpirational part of this Cmid is that so many was accomplished only by organizing one event. Heineken encountered on a very effective way their target group. One of the reasons their method was so effective is becaused Heineken contracted accomplishes. This way the credebility of the event was okay, and eventually it was a great succes.
If you take a closes look to the technique of Heineken you notice they take away what is important for their target( football) , and later they give it back. Suddenly Heineken is their friend, and this results in a very positive brand image.

Now watch and enjoy!