FDBusiness.com

Heineken and Google have formed an innovative advertising partnership, which will begin with the launch of worldwide digital campaigns on YouTube and mobile phones for Heineken’s global brands. The partnership will see Heineken and Google work together in more than 20 markets in 2011.

As part of the agreement, each market will use YouTube to activate the global campaigns, including homepage takeovers, pre-rolls and joint research projects. The two companies will also work on creating mobile campaigns in emerging economies, where mobile internet exceeds desktop use. In addition, Google will participate in Heineken’s internal education programme, with both companies bringing together their marketing professionals to exchange ideas and share knowledge.

Alexis Nasard, chief commercial officer at Heineken, comment: “Through the partnership with Google, Heineken will be able to strengthen its leadership position in the digital space. The opportunity exists to build on our successes and continue to provide adult consumers with exciting and compelling content. The key part of our strategy is to keep breaking grounds in beer communication, ignite the digital conversation and connect with our consumer in innovative ways.”

Henrique de Castro, global president of media and platforms for Google, says: “This global Heineken campaign spanning 20 countries is one of our biggest global display campaigns ever. It will provide Heineken with brand-building reach and the ability to carefully target their audience. And with live insights and ongoing research measuring the impact upon consumers, they will have the flexibility to suggest optimisations on a very frequent basis.”

Heineken’s new global brand campaign ‘Legends’ was the brand’s first worldwide campaign to be rolled out on YouTube, with the first instalment ‘The Entrance’ achieving close to 4 million hits globally in the first three weeks of its release.