Heineken set to develop global brand campaign

by Mark Sweney, Marketing 20-Oct-04

Heineken is striving to make its marketing campaigns more consistent across the globe and is developing a single ad campaign to run in major territories

The Dutch brewer believes its brand could benefit from more consistent messages.

It is understood Heineken chiefs are keen to ensure that marketing departments in local territories - which exercise varying degrees of autonomy - sign on to run the campaign and it has hired Wieden & Kennedy Amsterdam to develop the activity.

However, the first tranche of ads are not thought to threaten Clemmow Hornby Inge's hold on the £4m UK business in the short term.

Leslie Meredith, Heineken UK marketing director, said she was aware of the project, but indicated that she has no plans for the campaign to be introduced into the UK.

Heineken has recently appointed a London PR agency to handle the global communications brief for the campaign, which will include the creation of an event called 'greenspace'. The event is designed to associate the brand with music and film .

In the UK, Heineken has focused its efforts on pushing its 5% premium lager, which was launched last year.

Since splitting from Whitbread last year, Heineken has dropped down the premium beer market rankings as it has tried to rebuild volume sales.

According to drinks research specialist Canadean, the brand was the 20th biggest in the sector last year.

However, sales figures for 2004, due out next June, are likely to show a significant improvement.