Episode 98 - Heineken Cheers To All Fans Ad Reviewed By L'Oréal, P&G, FIS and Boots
This week on Advertisers Watching Ads, we’re talking about Heineken’s Cheers To All Fans ad, chosen by Contagious. It’s all about real inclusivity in sport, but Heineken turns gender bias on its head by featuring women fans first and foremost.
Is this ad paying lip service to a trendy issue, or is it true to the brand’s bigger projects around sponsoring women’s football and debunking sports myths? Is the marketing strategy distinctive enough for Heineken? And are they doing enough to win over women?
Our guests Theresa Van Rooyen (Marketing Director at L’Oréal), Henrik Gaida (Director of Digital Media and Data Strategy at P&G), Matt Gosselin (Director of Global Product Marketing at FIS) and Pete Markey (Chief Marketing Officer at Boots) gave this ad only 2.5 out of 5. Find out why and watch it in the latest episode!
Automated Transcript
Episode 98 - Heineken Cheers To All Fans Ad Reviewed By L'Oréal, P&G, FIS and Boots
Tom Ollerton 00:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads. My name is Tom Ollerton, and we are brought to you, as ever by our wonderful partners, contagious.com, who send us innovative ads every week for us to review. Before we get to that ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Theresa Van Rooyen 00:26
Hello, guys. My name is Theresa Van Rooyen, and I am the Marketing Director for Garnier in Africa, and it's part of the L'Oreal Group.
Henrik Gaida 00:33
Hey, guys. So my name is Henrik Gaida, Director of Digital Media and Data Strategy at Procter and Gamble across the German speaking markets Germany, Austria, Switzerland.
Matt Gosselin 00:41
Hey, everyone, I'm Matt Gosselin. I'm Director of Global Product Marketing at FIS.
Pete Markey 00:45
And hi, everyone. I'm Pete Markey. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer for Boots in the UK and Ireland.
Tom Ollerton 00:50
What a panel! Spread evenly across the whole planet today. Very pleased to have you here, guys. Thank you. So women's sport is getting increased coverage, which is great, but unfortunately still only makes up 7% of coverage. Heineken are working to change this through sponsoring UEFA Women's Champions League and the Euros and through making female fans the center of their football ads. So let's see this week's ad. So on the count of three, can you just hold up your fingers to give a vote? So one, two, three... Three. Theresa, you're a two. Henrik, you're a three and Pete, you're a two. So what else was happening in this campaign for Heineken?
Theresa Van Rooyen 02:52
So, look, I think Heineken has been a supporter of male football since 1994 and they only recently started joining the Female Football League as a sponsor which in my opinion is probably a little bit late. We have had female football fans for years and today almost 50% of football fans are female. So to only really join the female discussion in 2021 when it became a topic, when it became a trend, and when it was clear that there's obviously money to make, I question a little bit the sincerity, to be honest.
Matt Gosselin 03:19
There's two things here that you either create an advertisement for brand, or for product for one or the other. And the problem with this is there is a history with beer and women and men for that matter. There's a there's a history, if you replace Heineken with a new company with the same spot, what kind of appeal does that have to an audience, then all of a sudden start changing our perspective on this because of who's telling it. And I think that's something that needs to be looked at a little bit.
Pete Markey 03:48
It's obviously they've got a long term association with football, particularly women's football, so trying to champion all aspects of the sport and not just through advertising, but how they're sort of got involved in the ground. The grassroots up with football, but clearly they see football as having a great connection with them, them and the brand, it widened out. They've done more with football over a period of time. Going forward, the future of how football is seen, how supporting the game. So it's quite an ambitious program they've got.
Henrik Gaida 04:14
I think they nailed it on the head, right? It's all built around the insight that two of three women have experienced some sort of gender discrimination around the game of football, which obviously is something that we shouldn't have in this day and age and something that, that needs to be addressed. And I think it hits home with the current consumers, the millennial and the Gen Z consumers who expect brands to take a bit of a stand beyond kind of their core expertise area and align with their moral compass and their values. And I think the campaign hits home directly in that.
Matt Gosselin 04:43
I have a couple of qualms with this. Women prefer wine to beer, 59% to 23%. So this is a really big uphill battle for Heineken. So when you throw in a cultural relevance here, it becomes pretty complex for an advertising spot. I don't expect my beer to have emotions. I don't expect it to be on the cusp of a cultural movement. And I'm not saying those things aren't good attributes or things to go after. But apparently my Heineken beer, which has been around since 1860s, has strong convictions about the progressive female and they're trying to build it into this particular spot. Because it's so specific to a type in an almost a stereotype, I go as far as saying that, for this particular female within the soccer market, I think it comes across as pandering to a wider audience.
Theresa Van Rooyen 05:37
Of course, many women still drink prefer wine as beer, but I really think there's a big target to go after female soccer or football fans because I think there's a huge opportunity and we shouldn't look at consumers as very one dimensional anymore, consumers are becoming more and more multi-dimensional. So even though I prefer wine, I have occasions where I would drink beer. And for sure when I watch a football match, I'm not sure wine would be my choice of beverage, even though I definitely do prefer wine. I think they have an opportunity here to really capitalize on a market which not many people have yet.
Henrik Gaida 06:10
What I also like is that they didn't stop at, "Here is a 90-second video. This is the video and done." But they also did something about it. And I think what they did is they flank this video and I think this was mentioned before as I find that very cool. It's this website "Fresher Football" where they're trying to ungender bias some of the facts around the game of football meaning if you Google how many times has team X won, won the Champions League for instance, all that shows up is the men's results and never the men's and women's results together, right? So what they did is they used some of the ad spend on Google AdWords to, to correct the facts around some of these questions and therefore drive a bigger discussion. If you don't know about this issue, you don't... You've never experienced, for instance, you don't really know what the film is about until the last scene where it says even men. And then you get to thinking. Some people, I don't think they might realize that what the, what the core issue that they addressed in this film is. I showed it to one of my team members and she watched it for 90 seconds. She is a woman. She's far away from football. And then she's like, "So what it is about? How is it meant?" Right? And then I explained the rest of the campaign and then she, she understood. But I think it's from a simple creative execution. It's not really clear because they are very sparse in terms of issue set up and then resolution in the end. You know, asking someone to watch a 90-second film is quite long, especially in the digital space. I'm sure this is just the flagship asset that they then potentially cut down or brought a shorter format on TV.
Matt Gosselin 07:32
We were on vacation on Monday, so I didn't get to share this with my team yet, but I did share it with my family. And I'll tell you my, my ten-year-old soccer playing and insightful daughter said, "I didn't like the beginning. Can we just start it halfway through?" I think it's better off at 55 seconds and on. I think it gets to the meat of the story and I think it's a powerful piece you know from there on.
Pete Markey 07:53
It's a real challenge some of that stereotyping, isn't it? I mean, I could just picture a very different version of that where you know, just celebrates women's love of football in a really different way, just to... Did feel like a missed opportunity. It's quite interesting especially how heavy handed is sort of what I felt about the ad overall, sometimes the ad's disruptive, almost slap you in the face to try and make a point and... There could have been also a gentle touch to this that could have had a probably greater impact in terms of how they did it. Heineken have done way better work... One of my favorite things they did a few years ago, the longer film where they have 3 minutes of this social experiment where they got people who had a completely different opinion to each other, to do a task together. And then at the end, they reveal their difference of opinion. Because they'd already become friends by working on a task together, they sat and had a beer and listened to each other's perspective on things. And it was... It's amazing film where you had a transgender lady and this guy was like really anti-trans. It's a wonderful moment. They can try and change opinions for the better, but this was, this was pretty bit too heavy.
Theresa Van Rooyen 08:54
Look, I think it's a rather late than never. I'm happy they joined the club. I think that for me it was very obvious, but it felt... It didn't feel sincere. It felt like this is a typical... They could just replace the males with female cast, the rest is exactly the same. I mean, in terms of the intimacy scenes where the female is kind of looking over the man's shoulder, that's exactly how I would feel. Men do it. Many football female fans also support their children. So I'm not saying we only want to support moms supporting their kids football, but at least have a bit of a mix to bring that sincerity of women can be multidimensional. We're not only stereotypical compared to male, female, male sport fans. We have our own nuances. And why do they not portray that?
Tom Ollerton 09:34
Guys, thank you so much. We'll see you all next week.
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