Brewing Innovation: Heineken’s Digital Leap with Gordon Hamilton, Heineken

Welcome back to the Innovation Brief, the podcast where we have real conversations with leaders driving meaningful change across diverse sectors. I'm Matt Briggs. In each episode, we speak with innovation leaders exploring the ideas, challenges and breakthroughs shaping the future of our world. Today we'll be diving into what innovation looks like behind the scenes of a major multinational consumer brand. I guess this is Gordon Hamilton, digital innovation lead at Heineken. Gordon, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's really good to be here. Let's start off. Could you please first of all tell us a little bit about your role as digital innovation lead at Heineken. I think it would be great to hear sort of what digital innovation means beyond just the buzzwords for a 150 year old brewing company like Heineken? Yeah, it's definitely a longstanding company. So my role in Heineken is relatively new, our department restructured last year and that included a digital innovation lead. So this is similar to the structure that we have in our global counterparts in Amsterdam and to have had success with over the last six or so years. Having the autonomy to do digital innovation ourselves in the UK is probably the most complex operating company for Heineken is really empowering. It's acknowledging the fact that digital is where progress is and to stay relevant. We need to enable pockets across the organisation to challenge that status quo and introduce new technologies to create better experiences for our customers, consumers and our colleagues. Could you maybe kind of give us a bit of a dive into what that actually means in a company like Heineken? So kind of what are the typical areas of the business that digital innovation is touching? Yeah, so it's really open to any parts of the business. We do see a lot of digital innovation really being applied well to our on-trade sector because in the UK we have our own pub based that we own. So it's really impactful for us because we can see the full end-to-end data and what impact any digital innovation that we're doing has on those pubs. And other areas, most importantly are things like supply chain. They really do benefit from digital initiatives that are going on in there. We see that a lot. Things like digital twins that we see happening as an example, but yes, there's a lot of benefit to be had including things like marketing as well. I'm interested in what digital innovation might look like in a pub actually. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that. For us, we look at consumer trends and so on across our pub network and one of the things that we recognise is that it's quite difficult to capture the interest of younger generations and the pub model has been quite stagnant for some time now and it's one that doesn't really change. It's just you go and you have have a nice drink and you bond with people, create some memories and then you leave. So we're trying to look at how can we leverage technology within those pubs to try and enhance that experience without deteriorating the overall quality that people would come to know and love about going and visiting their local pub. Perhaps you could give us an example of that kind of technology? Yeah, sure. So at the moment we have a technology that's in our pubs and has been for some years now called Smart to Spence and what that piece of kit does is the in the sellers you don't really see it as a consumer but what it's there to do is to make sure that your beer is being poured correctly, it's low maintenance in terms of cleaning the lines, it to make sure that it's getting there without any issues in terms of yeast and things that are growing in the lines, keeps it all kind of cold and fresh but it also makes sure that there's less issues for the customer themselves and they don't have as much maintenance concerns. What we have been doing with that is enabling kind of devices and data to be pulled out of it, which allows us to be proactive and then managing those customers making sure that any problems that we do see happening that we can manage those and resolve them without the customer being impacted. Yeah, I can imagine it might be quite challenging to bring innovations like that into a pub setting and people can be quite particular about the way that their beer is served and poured. Maybe you could tell us a bit about some of the challenges that you found with kind of a heritage brand like Heineken in bringing in digital innovation. What are some of the barriers that you find when bringing digital innovation to pubs and to other parts of the business? I mean you called to say it's 150 year old brand, it's a pretty big one to manage and for us it's really obvious it's governance. Whilst there are some smaller operating companies within Heineken who can do things at much quicker pace than we can in the UK, the UK does have a lot to manage between data, cybersecurity, vendors that we work with just because of our scale. So the costs implement solutions are much higher and so we have that bigger risk to manage. You do have that big name brand on your shoulders to protect a lot of customers, consumers that we work with. So we need to make sure that if something goes wrong we try and avoid that or cost because you're obviously going to get a lot of reputational damage with everything going on in this day and age. We touched earlier on kind of the tradition of going to the pub, socialising, going for a drink, leaving, it's kind of been a thing that people do that has remained relatively unchanged for a long time but how are you seeing consumption patterns starting to change now? Are Gen Z and younger millennials doing things differently? Have you had to rethink your innovation strategy to connect with those groups? Yeah, so I think this is universal across the FMCG market, it's not really isolated with In Heineken especially in alcohol brands. I mean I've been looking at stats now for some time and the change in sentiment from your Gen Z in surveys is their attitude towards alcohol. The message that you typically see on platform sharing was up to 30% of Gen Zs or drinking less than their previous generations at the same age and the initial reason was health conscious behaviors. So you might have seen lots of brands coming out with new products that promote health conscious behaviors but then when you scratched beneath the surface of that it actually reveals that it's mostly economic factors that are impacting them. So they feel like they don't have the privilege of time to go out and drink and being hung over the next day so they need to prioritise earning as much as possible to make ends meet. They just simply have less expendable income. It's a big talking point right now for Heineken especially in the UK. We do what we can to connect with this generation and not to alienate them from future engagement. We've actually created a new team called Beyond Beer so they've been acquiring smaller brands such as Served which is one that's made by Ellie Golden and another couple of founders. It's all kind of pre-mixed cocktails so we're trying to branch out from typical beer insider even just innovating on those making them a little bit more fruity and offering more low and no alcohol drinks. So not only this but on a radar is also knowing that the younger generation see alcohol as a supplementary to activities so you see more things like activity bars popping up and being popular like flight club, boom battle bar, NQ64 and so on. Interesting. So would you say then perhaps there are some misconceptions still around what actually Gen Z are looking for from alcohol and perhaps it's not necessarily that they want to cut it out completely. They just actually want to have it as a part of those other experiences. Yeah so I think the misconception is that the thought that alcohol cells itself is just becoming very short-lived generations have changed gradually. We even seen that with millennials but the newest generation drinking habits have changed more drastically than the last and that's something that we can't really avoid that's really obviously happening in the world. I didn't touch on this all day but the what consumers want is more activities and experiences. The emerging trend for any brand out there not just drinking brands is hyper-personalized content so whether that's something that's digital or physical it's quite irrelevant but they actually they want to move away from tech as well so Gen Z especially with COVID fatigue they're okay with being a supplement to a physical experience but we're seeing a lot of movement away from things like VR. Perhaps you could share a specific example with us of where Gen Z feedback has completely changed the direction of an innovation project at Harniken. An example of this happening is it has some digital elements to it but it's focused on a specific product. A lot of this is to do with being just after COVID whenever then was looking at digital experiences to get people engaging with that lack of physical interaction existing. So you might be aware of this so we launched that a new product called Harniken Silver and it was through the VR platform called Decentral Land as part of the Metaverse. We made it a big hosted event for the product including live music event inside the platform. Harniken Silver is a brand was aimed at a younger generation who were seen to dislike the taste of beer so it was a lower alcohol percentage from the regular Harniken tasted less like a typical beer less bitter, but the concept was a trial from the digital innovation team within our global office. And it just missed the mark. It was a learning bit, we took that feedback. There was that digital fatigue from Covid, people were fed up, they wanted to be in real-life experiences, but without stating the obvious, you can't drink in VR. So it kind of doesn't really work for brands that are all about drinking things. Whilst the brand itself has worked to another op cause, it has fallen out a favour in the UK to the point we don't sell hain and it's over in the UK anymore. Right, okay. Yeah, I'm not sure the idea of having a meeting up for a virtual beer sounds like appealing to me. So yeah, that's interesting to hear. I was wondering, also, maybe you could tell us a bit about Hainek and Studio, which I think it's build kind of as your playground for experimentation. What does that mean? And kind of how do you balance that experimentation with kind of the governments and the global brand standards that you have in such a large company as Hainek? I know of Hainek and Studio, I had to do a bit of digging on this one. I've been over, so I was over in Amsterdam recently and seen it, but it is definitely not us that run it. It's a global team, but you're right in saying it is an innovation playground. So it's where we kind of open the doors of our research and development to consumers. So we take measured risks with kind of small volumes, clearly presenting everything as a prototype. It's not a done deal product that we're going to launch. We're transparent about that fact, and it's just all part of a learning process. The idea is that consumers are trying something bold under the Hainek and Studio brand with the aim of creating future experiences that are a bit more innovative and surprising for the master brand. Talking about the studio, what's been the most unexpected insight that has perhaps challenged your assumptions about how people want to experience beer? The studio is quite early days. It did start just in March, where they opened the doors. It's purely tested in the Netherlands for our limited-dedition Mochum 750. It's in France and Spain with foam infusions. So this is quite a piece of magic where they're using Hainek and as a base product. And then they add flavored foam made from liquor and fruit juice, just to kind of add sesty flavors, I guess, to the beer and try and play around with the different flavor profiles. It's to try and stretch the lag or make it a bit bold to make it new unexpected directions. They add sweet, herbal, spicy, wild yeasts, so it's all kind of there to just be trialled and tested with consumers. But because that's all into one tap, it means that it's not like a huge effort to try and do that. We're also testing few beer delivery systems and they're going to start sharing some learnings from that soon by the end of the summer. Yeah, I remember when I visited a friend who lives in Bordeaux in France, actually, and it was really common there for them to make, I think they called it beer pêche, so they would have beer with some peach syrup in it. So it sounds like maybe that's kind of inspiration perhaps for that project. Yeah, I wouldn't be seeing that name in Scotland, otherwise we get some sort of words, sorry. Yeah, you're right. Another project that I've been reading a bit about was the innovator's brew house, which a platform that you use to crowdsource external ideas. It'd be interested to hear a bit more about that. The brew house is something that was created three or four years ago and it was in our global offices. So their digital innovation team came up with the concept and it's just our hainikens spin on what an incubator is, typically seen. So your dragons, their type of approach, your invite startups to come along and then you can pitch and decide which one you want to do and a partnership with. So the brew house is a great initiative and we're actually hosting our own for the first time in the UK next week in our London office. So for me, the goal here is to solve a business problem that can create real value for the business and whether that be for one business function or for more where possible, I would always consider the startups that we engage, the ones that get shortlisted for the pitching day, they would pass the kind of litmus test of where they would be a yes to at least two of the following questions. So it would be a typical, does it create something new and useful that neither hainiken or the startup could do alone? Is there deep integration from a technical operational strategic point of you and will the end users experience or value fundamentally changes residual? So it sounds like you're looking there for kind of genuinely innovative partnerships, not just sort of marketing exercises, you're looking for things that have a real strategic fit. Is that right? Maybe it gives an example of the kind of idea that's come through that program. Yeah, so previous ones that have happened, I can use one that's going on in Africa at the moment, within Africa there's a number of outlets that we distribute to but there are certain regions of Africa that basically are no-go zones for delivery drivers and so they're working with local areas to try and it's called the last mile where they support and get people from the local areas to come and do that last mile delivery without beer of anything happening. Just quite an unusual one in comparison to other ones that we've done, we've done stuff that's more kind of technical focus, it's been virtual experiences within Vietnam during their street vendors, parades, kind of sales of food and whatever that they've been doing. That was something that we tried to do to support the local economy because it was a big deal for them and they didn't have anything to do for COVID. We've also deployed in the US a startup that's been doing tagging on point of sale material. That was helpful for us because it meant that we could track when point of sale material was actually making it to its destination that we were intending it to go to but it was also to make sure that the pubs were actually using it and it was adding value where it was supposed to. For the one that we're doing next week, our challenge statement that we're presenting is actually to do with how can we increase frequency of visit to pubs for Gen Z consumers. How do you go about collecting those challenge statements? Do you have a team that kind of work across the Heineken business trying to understand where potential opportunities are? Yeah, so within my kind of wiser remit, so we have a brand in Heineken called the Pexel Pioneers, which is trying to be a little bit more digital themes. Within that group we have champions from each business function area and with those people we would then go through a kind of discovery session we'll try and gather some insights. What are the pain points that we're seeing in those business functions and where we can see something that's clearly defined it's something that adds value and we can call it what that value is but also making sure that we can tie it back to Heineken strategy that actually is something that we're looking to achieve as part of our strategic goals whether that be a yearly or a five-year-old look outlook. So that's the kind of stuff that we've been doing thus far and then once we've got it we would just reflect that back to kind of senior management in each of those business function areas to make sure that it does align and that they're kind of sponsoring the event and we've got it so for this one that's happening next week some of those people will be involved in the judging panel as well. Right, so you're able to build buy in around the Heineken business into this idea by making sure those people are kind of part of the process, the part of the judging panel they feel kind of invested in in the process. Yeah, we need to make sure that when we're doing this the great we'll do a pilot and we'll work with the start of this one but we need to make sure that on the other end of it if it is successful that the business function area that is supposed to benefit is bought into it because at that point you start getting into the funding part of it as to who's coughing up the money to pay for this but that's where we kind of we cover the cost and for the brew house type of temity and then we split it when it comes to the pilot. Right, yeah I think that's really the critical part isn't it with these kind of projects it's kind of it's okay getting the initial interest in the pilot but then how do you actually make sure that the that program kind of continues running and is integrated into the business in the long term maybe you could share with us kind of any insights into how you've kind of managed to keep those projects running beyond the initial pilot how have you managed to keep that interest up from the business? It has been a challenge because like I said at the start of this my team didn't exist over a year ago so we've been building out this brand and I've been taking time out to go to each business function area to things like town halls to share the message of what we're doing we've built a kind of process for people to engage with us and we've got our champions that are in each of the function areas as well so we're definitely kind of driving a bit of a buzz around what digital innovation is for a lot of people in Hanykin they don't they're not aware of it they don't know it's for them innovation is a new product to get excited about so they kind of look at this and go what is it you're doing? It's definitely has been a challenge but I think being very vocal, being passionate about what we're doing driving really. results so when we're doing pilots, you know, we're sharing all the kind of milestones that we hit on our social platforms, really cascading what is the benefit that we're driving here. And I think if you're really crystal clear on that, then that's when you get the kind of buy-in from people and they're really incentivized to come and naturally speak to you about any ideas that they may have. Yeah, that makes total sense. A hundred and invested 45 million euros into a new R&D Centre, which I think is bringing together kind of talent from from Crossharniken from 12 different countries. What do you think that kind of tells us about where Harniken is headed and where maybe the brewing industry as a whole is headed? Yeah, so this one is another one that's fairly new to me. They released it. Did a big kind of town hall type event to cascade a lot of information to us and the rest of the upcoast, but it's yes, newly launched by our global colleagues. It's for the brewing industry. I would say it's quite difficult for market penetration. So true in a nation, I would say is the way to keep beer and exciting category with some of the stuff we've been doing in the likes of Studio. But as a company, Harniken has always been seen as pioneering and leading by example. An example of that is the first being the first brand to offer a zero, zero product, which everyone will see. It's all over kind of Formula One. Everything to do with that is being in Coronation Street. If I remember correctly, I don't get my soaps wrong. We've done a load of partnerships with different things as well as football. But yeah, recognizing that I guess global brands are somewhat remaining flat in the value in the last few years. You do see a lot of new stuff coming into play. I would find most big brewing industry companies making innovation a priority for their future strategies. One thing we haven't really touched on yet, but I guess it's kind of going back to the changing priorities and desires of consumers, a sustainability. So what impact is the need to be more sustainable having for Harniken as a company from your perspective with your team? So I actually have something that's very hot off the press. It lets me say that yesterday, on LinkedIn, I think. So for the first time, we are named as one of the most sustainable companies of 2025 in time and statistic's top 500 list. But I would say before adding that in Harniken, I wouldn't say as new to this. A sustainability has always been, I mean, I've been in Harniken for the last three and a half years. But from people, colleagues, I speak to it has been a core objective when looking, especially at our supply chain. And more recently in product development. So in the last year or so, you'll have seen that all of our cans have shifted to cardboard grips rather than plastic rings. We see kind of innovation shine most for sustainability within our breweries. We've been bringing in a number of different efficiencies in those areas to improve sustainability in the production cycle. A great example of this. It was posted in LinkedIn, so it's kind of fairly public knowledge. But in one of our UK breweries, we had a young graduate engineering colleague and he used the waste from the brewing process to create a cement-like substance and he used it in a 3D printer to create a Harniken star. And obviously, this was just part of a project, pet project that he was doing. But it shows us that there is opportunities for us to look at completely removing any waste in the brewing process. Interesting. That's really cool. So I guess it sounds like at Harniken, there's kind of room for people to kind of go off and experiment with their own projects to try and shape things from a sustainability perspective. So Gordon, one question we like to ask everyone who comes onto the podcast. Every innovation leader has failures. So what's one project you could tell us about that perhaps didn't work out as you were hoping, but maybe taught you quite a lot. Sure. So like I said earlier, I'm kind of early on in my innovation journey within Harniken. So while I'm running a number of initiatives right now, I can't really use any of that have failed just yet. They are still kind of going strong, which is good to hear. But an example that has taught me something important when we are innovating that happened within Harniken is our strongbo brand. So we did create a new product called Strongbo Ultra and the point of it was to to aim at the younger demographic showcasing a low calorie, lower percentage alcohol. And it's not to say that the product itself was the wrong idea. It's I think trying tying it to this brand image and influence was wrong. So if we look at I mean, this is this is my personal take on it. But Strongbo consumers are kind of ones that are purchasing based on affordability. They're kind of low value high consumption patterns. And I wouldn't really necessarily associate them with caring about low calorie and percentage offering. So whilst the brand went through a massive rebrand investment kind of steering away from the black and the golden and the old branding, I think it just steered away too far from that brand identity and it kind of alienated the consumers to the point where the product is now discontinued. So all of that kind of investment has just went down the drain. So this can be things seen in things not in Harniken, but if you look at like the Jaguar rebrand, that was a monumental change in the brand identity. And I would say it's more likely to be detrimental than helpful to its longevity if you're doing that. Sure, yeah. I think not had a strong vote for a long time. That was kind of my my drink of choice music festivals because you could keep it in your tent and if it got warm, it was still drinkable. Not sure I was worried too much about the other parts of the marketing behind. We've talked quite a bit already about kind of changing consumer behaviour trends, technology trends. Maybe you could share with us perhaps are there any other kind of innovation catalyst that people perhaps don't realise are going to be really important over the coming years? This is a really hard question to answer like right now in the world. I feel kind of overwhelmed trying to keep up with the ruling. I feel like we're we're clawing back more physical interactions, less technology focus back to our real grassroots than the nostalgia of the 90s in the early 2000s, everybody is seeing flare jeans coming back into fashion. Hainiken created a phone called the Boring Phone. This was something that sold it sold out due to its popularity and because of that, they then developed an app. So you can go on the app store right now, look at the Boring Phone. It just turns blocks all your notifications, it turns your phone back into a Nokia Brick essentially. Whilst I would say this, you know, tech isn't stopping anytime soon. Your genie, your AI agents, your physical robots. I feel like it's it's like two sides pulling equally on a global stage. Consumer behaviour, burnout of tech. I think that will probably be the biggest kind of catalyst for innovation. It did a lot post-COVID when you remove physical interaction for so long, for so many years where people whilst tech can be used for good, I think it's to be seen as more of an enabler but not something that people build their lives around. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense to me. Definitely feels like I don't personally have quite a lot of nostalgia for sort of, you know, simpler times when we weren't glued to our phones and you know, you could just go to the pub in your Fledgians with your brick phone, have a have a pint of strong bow with the classic marketing behind it. Only the only deviation we're glued to as a Tamagotchi is being shared and done. Exactly. Final question for you today, Gordon. What advice would you give to other digital innovation leaders that are trying to drive experimentation in established long running companies like Heineken? I would say to try and detach yourself from any sort of agenda or buzzwords that you've heard in some sales pitch for some cool innovation that you want to try and do in your company. I think you should always be looking at what value that you're trying to generate. So I find this particularly critical because once you can quantify what that value is for your business, then you're more likely to get people to buy into an easier rate. And obviously depending on your business size, the bigger you are, then that would unlock as well investment for you to actually be able to get some momentum on this initiative, whatever you're trying to do. Fantastic wise words. Thank you, Gordon. All right. I think that's what's done for today. So thank you very much for joining us just before you leave us. What's next for you, Gordon? How can I listen to us learn more about your work and connect with you? Like I said, to kind of very early and touch upon this. So I'm still very much in growth phase in a year into building a new team, a brand working on some cool innovation experiments in the UK for Heineken. A lot of it is very new to me, but I mean, I like the challenging dynamic that it brings. Personally speaking as well, my life is going through massive change. My first child to June, September. So I'm doing a lot of prep to grow my knowledge and kind of being a father, being a support of husband to my wife on top of that renovating the project as our house in East Logan. So I'm sure there will be failures and success stories both in work and personally. And I'll look to share more of those on LinkedIn as and when they happen. It's kind of part of my objective at the moment to build a bit more of a brand on social media. So yeah, I'm always tend to be a lot more old school and share less on social media, but I do need to start sharing a bit more. Excellent. Well, you sound like a very busy man. So thank you for taking the time to join us today and wish you all of the best with all of your endeavors. Perfect. Thank you very much for having me. That's a wrap on our third episode of Innovation Brief. Thank you to Gordon Hamilton for being with us today and sharing some fantastic insights into his world. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe to Innovation Brief and don't forget to leave some review. It helps other innovation enthusiasts discover the show. We'll be back next time with another great conversation. This has been the Innovation Brief with me, Mavericks.