Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/57654
BEER NEWS The Heineken Serenade Band is featured in the brand's new ad campaign. Putting the Buzz Back into Beer FRESH IDEAS ARE BREWING AT HEINEKEN USA by David Ransom A fter enduring five years of stagnation in the U.S. beer industry, Dutch-owned suds giant Heineken USA, who along with its namesake beer is also the owner of such iconic brands as Amstel, England's Newcastle and a veritable stable of Mexican brands including Dos Equis, Tecate, Bohemia, Carta Blanca and Sol, is taking matters into its own hands by launching a new marketing campaign in an effort to kickstart a growth in sales. Spearheaded by its dynamic new President and CEO, Dolf van den Brink, HUSA (as it calls itself internally) is embark- ing on a mission to re-invigorate the beer category, which has seen its thunder stolen by the wine and spirits categories in the last ten years, the latter largely due to the huge growth of cocktail culture. "Not to say that the state of the industry is actually in peril," says van den Brink, "only that it is in a state of flux created largely by a consolidation of major brands, an explosion of craft breweries and changing consumer trends. We plan to meet this new environment head-on by reinvent- ing beer marketing while remaining true to our mission of becoming the leading upscale beer company in the U.S." One key component of the campaign, led by new Chief Marketing Officer Lesya Lysyj, will be to focus on more aggressive advertising, both traditional and digitally through social media. "We're already the number-one beer brand 96 / the tasting panel / march 2012 on Twitter and have over five million Facebook followers worldwide," says Lysyj. "By using social media outlets like YouTube and Facebook to test our ads before they air, we are creating buzz, and when people share the clips online by posting or emailing them, the buzz grows even more." To that effect, Heineken is now spending a full 15% of its ad dollars in online advertising. Another cornerstone of the plan is the increased focus on "multicultural" buyers, largely the Latino market. Much of Heineken's brand building has been in Mexico, with a new beer, Indio, set to make its U.S. debut in April, so it's only natural that HUSA would want to attack that demographic with force. "Dos Equis Lager is the third largest growth brand in the country right now, with a 24% increase in the fourth quarter of last year alone," says Senior V.P. of Sales Scott Blazek. "We'll be increasing our efforts on the street to gain traction in neighborhood bodegas and bars, to increase that and boost the others." Maybe taking direction from the wine industry, Heineken is also thinking differently than it used to. "As recently as five or six years ago, we were a one-brand company. Since acquiring the other brands over the last few years, we now have the opportunity to think and market like a portfolio company," adds van den Brink, "which in turn will allow us to become the leading beer marketing partner to our clients." PHOTO COURTESY OF HEINEKEN USA