Can a brand help you make friends? Heineken sure thinks so

It’s always been hard to break the ice with a stranger. It’s a little easier when there’s common ground—like a shared hobby, interest, or cultural taste.

That’s the thinking powering The Clinker, a smart band that wraps around Heineken beer cans and bottles and alerts drinkers to shared interests when they tap their cans together. The beer brand debuted the technology last month at Coachella, where attendees who signed up and synced their music streaming data could, if they toasted other festivalgoers, find attendees with similar music tastes. The company plans to use it at other festivals and experiential activations around the globe this year.

The initiative marks the latest effort in Heineken’s push for in-person connection in marketing communications; the beer brand’s recently debuted platform, “Fans Have More Friends,” is a nod to the common ground that fosters friendship, after all.

Heineken has a history of pushing back against antisocial technical developments in marketing. Late last year, it responded to divisive billboards from the AI company Friend with its own out-of-home installation featuring ad copy that read, “The best way to make a friend is over a beer.” Heineken also created a bar (and an ad to go with it) based on New York Knicks guard Josh Hart’s friend group chat.

Ali Payne, CMO of Heineken USA, told Marketing Brew that the aim is not to push back against technology for the sake of it, but rather to find ways to encourage connection among its consumer set—even if that means designing some tech to do it.

“It’s not about being like, ‘All technology is bad,’ but what we want to do is use technology in a way that actually does bring people together,” Payne told us. “It’s really important to get together in real life, share a beer, [and] clink a can.”

Tech for…good?

Heineken isn’t the only CPG brand creating tech that encourages people to get off their phones and actually talk to the other human beings in their lives. Prego, the sauce brand from Campbell’s, recently rolled out the Connection Keeper, a device that will reportedly keep a record of dinner-table conversation in partnership with nonprofit StoryCorps, with the goal of encouraging people to talk to their families.

Heineken’s campaign and platform “touches a very human chord, and is really what consumers are talking about at the moment,” Payne said. “The fact that they felt lonely, and when you get together with someone who shares your interests, it’s very powerful. We want to do more to bring people together over a beer. You’ll see more and more from us in terms of how we enter the social conversation to encourage people to go out more.”

Other brands are addressing consumer reports of loneliness and its various negative effects through other means. This month, Van Leeuwen ice cream partnered with online therapy brand Rula on a therapy campaign, “Therapy in a Pint,” in which people can get a free therapy session if they scan the QR code available on limited-edition empty ice-cream containers.

Changing social norms

Payne views Heineken’s effort as a necessary “nudge” for people to hang out with their friends IRL as opposed to staying home and texting, something they may have become more accustomed to during the pandemic.

Allen Adamson, co-founder of brand consultancy Metaforce, said that more marketers may lean into encouraging in-person connection and real-life experiences, especially as digital spaces become more crowded.

“Every brand needs to build experience into how they go to market,” Adamson told us. “The more different that experience is, the more it’ll be shared, the more it’ll be relevant. It allows them to get out of the race to the bottom of, ‘How do you cram more into a smartphone screen?’”

But despite the intention, it’s possible some consumers may view any new tech with skepticism.

“Are they understanding that people want to spend more time with each other in real life? Yes. Is that something that can align itself to as a brand? Also, yes,” Sam Ogborn, marketing strategist, adjunct professor, and content creator, said. However, “Let’s not ignore the fact that people are drinking less than ever, and…nobody wants to freely give their data up anymore. So if you’re creating a campaign that touts in-person connection, but the catch is that I have to connect my data and wear a wearable to experience the activation? I’m out.”