How Heineken became creative brand of the year - Ali Payne

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Right now in this episode, we're going to be talking to the creative marketer of the year from Cannes, Alipane, the CMO of Heineken in the US. Strategy is more about what you're not going to do than what you are going to do. Capturing eyeballs these days is tough right and live sport in particular is one of the few events that gets everyone's eyeballs. Sometimes not being the official sponsor forces you down to to be super creative. Like how are we going to do this within the legal boundaries? How can we insert ourselves into the culture of the event? I think it made us more creative. Alipane, welcome to the show. Thank you. So great to be here. Good to be here and hot off the back of the World Cup as well, which is great. What was it like being in the town, one of the towns I hosted? I said to everyone, I'm actually in mourning that it finished on Sunday because I think what the World Cup did was really bring country fandom to the US. It created a wave of positivity. And so in every city, whether it was New York, Boston, Houston, Dallas, L.A., everyone was out supporting their own country. And we were, as the official beer of soccer, of course, we were right there at the heart of it. So it was awesome. I mean, certainly looking in it looked like you had a great time and it looked like the US put on a great show for everybody and really attracted the crowds and lots of my American friends were very proud as well that it showed off the country in a great light. Oh, yeah, you know, and I think I think it was needed, right? Obviously, a lot of the press coming out of the US has been negative things like tariffs, all those sort of things that have impacted the world. So actually having something where people could focus on just pure celebration and bringing soccer, like a sport to the US whilst it's actually got quite a strong, I wouldn't say, underground movement. It is a very popular sport. It's played at grassroots by kids. So I guess the fact that it doesn't have as big a professional league as, as say, you know, hockey or football, but the fact that we were able to bring soccer to the US and they could see the power of the game is just awesome. And, you know, we did things like, you know, people heard about the tartan army in Boston, you know, drinking the town dry. Of course, you know, we came to the rescue, Harnik and delivered beer in an emergency. So it's all those things that we could do to just continue the celebration, you know. It's funny, isn't it? Yeah. It's those things, the reactive things, like the Norwegians doing the rowing. It's the rowing, yeah. They're the things we remember, the kind of cultural moments where brands stepped up. Yeah. So something like that, was that planned or do you just decide, you know, do you have things ready to go or do you kind of decide on the moment to do something? Look, we did have a certain number of things planned. We had a program called VTO, Volunteer Time Off, as everyone knows, actually watching football can be a tough thing when you're at work, because a lot of the games are in the middle of the day. So we found a sort of loophole in people's what we call Volunteer Time Off, a lot of companies offer their employees time off to go and volunteer. So what we did is organize with a group of NGOs, volunteer programs, like cleaning up a beach in Miami or working in a food bank in New York, that you could volunteer and that we would then fund you drinking, watching the game and drinking some Harnikans at the end of your volunteer opportunity. So those are the things we planned, and we had sort of iterations of that throughout the course of the program, but there's other things we just jumped on. So we have cultural listening, we had squads of people finding out what was going on, and I think leaning into that fandom, you know, the left, right, with the Dutch, of course, we bought the bus, the Dutch bus, to our beer distributors in Texas, you know, those sort of things we jumped off on as the, I guess, as the games unfolded, you know, unfolded. So, yeah. Now I must ask you about official beer soccer, right? So when I saw that, knowing that you weren't the official sponsor World Cup, I immediately went to chat to EP team. I was like, I got a minute. Is this legal? I don't. Well, how do you get away with that? Yes. Well, I did the same thing, by the way, you know, with a legal team, I'm like, Matt, who's a legal guy? I'm like, are you sure? You know, look, my predecessor, I said, I step into my predecessor, CMO, he trademarked it back in the day, I don't know how long ago, because we have a strong affiliation with soccer in the US, responses of the Champions League, et cetera. So it was something that we were able to say. And legally, we trademarked it, and we were legally able to use it. So we used it to our advantage, and, you know, of course, obviously the rest of the world calls it football or football, you know, the fact that we could lean into what Americans call it at the time. And if you're in a lot of our major cities, you'll see our great out-of-home placements with official beer of soccer and helping Americans translate soccer terminology to actually American football terminology. So yeah, it was fantastic. We also took it onto our packs, you know, so it's all the way in store. We had limited edition aluminum can that we sold through pubs and bars. So yeah, it was great for us to be able to, I guess, hijack as we aren't the official sponsor. Yeah, that's amazing. Do you track who the public think are sponsoring the World Cup? Did you see any kind of sentiment? Yeah, I don't have official data. We do track across all our sponsorships, and sometimes it's more surprising. I think, you know, sometimes you think the official sponsors are the ones that are going to be known the most, whereas the ones that really show up in store, in the bars, you know, our heartland is in a lot of the cities where, if a Hynacan, where the games were being played, you know, we have our highest share in New York city, big share in Miami, Philly, you know, Boston. So the East Coast is a bit of our heartland, but again, we're pretty big in Texas. So the fact that we showed up in store and, you know, out of home and all those touchpoints with the consumer, with the official beer of soccer, I think meant that we, we were up there pretty much above some, above some of the, I'll, I'll be a competitor. Yeah. I can really imagine that. I've got some data on this, because there's a report from a company called Nectar Social, and they worked out that non-sponsors actually got more earned media on social media than sponsors, which I was fascinating. We imagine sponsors are spending tens of millions of dollars on that, buying all the rights, you know, to the World Cup. The fees alone are, in the millions, yeah, I mean, I do have a bit of a theory, and of course, we're official sponsors of things, and, you know, but sometimes not being the official sponsor forces you down to, to be super creative. Like how are we going to do this within the legal boundaries, how can we insert ourselves into the culture of the event, and we, like at Hynacan, it was all about fandom. We have this sort of campaign, fans have more friends, and, you know, it's about, it's, it's easy to pick up friends who have, have similar fandom to you, right? I think it, it made us more creative, because we knew that Big Bear competitor was the official sponsor. They were going to be blocking all the signage, you know, in the, in the stadiums, et cetera. So how do we be clever, and, you know, almost hijacked the cultural moments around fandom? So, yeah, for me, I'm not surprised, in some ways, because I think he, I think he could just become a bit more creative. I always said, those brands that I've worked on that have the smallest budgets, sometimes you can just do magic things, you know, because, yeah, because you can get a bit lazy when you've got big budgets, you know, just slap the logo on, and official beer of this, and, you know, so, yeah, I think that's why, yeah. There's an amazing book by Adam Morgan called A Beautiful Constraint, where it's all about where innovation and ideas come from, and actually the power of having constraint. Yes. So, the best example I've got, I worked at, I was working at Britvik, that's Pepsi Franchise, in UK, during the Olympics, 2012, whereas in London. And Coke had this policy of wherever the games go, they will put their compester back a generation. That's how they phrase it, whether they'll literally take over the entire city, take over the entire country, and we actually sent a team of people to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, 18 months earlier, to study everything they did, and we kind of worked out where the routes were going to be, where the merchandise was going to be, where the bribes were going to be. Yeah, everything, right? Yes, yeah. And basically, what we'd end up doing, I think it was either six or 12 weeks, we accepted that in this geography, we weren't going to win, right? We couldn't do anything about it, because it was, you know, near the Olympic Park, all the routes in. But then we built a plan, which is to win in all the weeks running up, and all the weeks coming afterwards. And by end of the year, we're taking two percentage points share in cola and we've got to a record-ever market share. Yeah, no, no. I think that would never have happened without Olympics. I think if it hadn't been Olympic year, we hadn't have taken that threat so seriously. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have achieved that. No, no, no. On Heineken 2, we were the same. I guess soccer, or football, often the season never ends. My husband's a lifetime arsenal supporter. I joke it's like the football seems to be on, you have three weeks, a break a year. But we have the lead up to the Champions League, right? And then it was rolling into the World Cup. But we knew we had to get out early, right? And so we were on the floor in all the grocery stores and the badegas in New York really early. And I think that's because we knew that we had to get, I guess, share of mind on the floor. We wouldn't have been so early, I don't think, if it wasn't a World Cup year in the US. Now, you're managing a brand that I believe over 150 years old. Yes, doesn't it? How do you approach kind of knowing what to keep about the brand with such a big legacy and also make it culturally relevant in the way that you've just described? I always think about brand building as making sure you hold on to the legacy and often the brilliance that started the brand is really at its core. And we talk about Freddie Heineken, who sort of walk the halls of Heineken in the Amsterdam and you see Freddie. And he has his famous quote, and I'm not going to -- my Dutch is terrible. So I will say it in English, which is, "I don't sell beer, I sell good times." "Rasela, I think it's how you pronounce it in Dutch." And for me, that's the fundamental thing that we've carried forward. And our mantra is that we believe in a refreshing social life. And a social life is best had in real life. And if you think about what's changed, we were stuck in our homes during COVID. Couldn't get together. Social media has taken people away from necessarily getting together in real life. But you know those moments when you do get together in real life are super, super important. So I think carrying that thread, it really did come from, "We don't sell beer, we sell good times." And good times are the best had over a beer in real life. For me, that's the red thread that we've carried from heritage to now. Yeah. I think everybody's starring on a branch, you go back to the museum. Oh, yeah, I love archives. It's amazing. We have the Heineken experience and the archive is there. I've often done that. I used to work at Kellogg's and I'd go in and go to the archive and see all the little things we used to put in the serial packs and those sort of things. You can find the best things through archive. Yeah. Because I think the magic of how a brand was born is important to hold on to. Yeah. And I think sometimes as you know in marketing new brand teams coming in as a CMO, you want to make a mark and sometimes you can just be doing change for changes sake. And it's sort of important to really understand what makes a brand. The brand it is, yeah. Now a very big year for you this year because you one can create a brand of the year. Yes. Massive congratulations. Yeah. Huge, huge achievements. Yes. And I stand on the shoulders of a lot of the CMO's worldwide because it was a collective effort. It's a worldwide contribution to all our awards. But yeah, it's amazing. That is incredible to do that. I think 31 lines this year, which is an amazing haul. Did you set out to achieve that or is this an outcome of kind of a plan to be more creative and do more creative work? Look, I think creativity has always been at the heart of what the Heineken company, but in particular the Heineken brand has been about. But I think in the last, I would say four or five years, putting creativity back as a major focus for the business. We certainly have made that a mantra. Even actually the investment of our top CMO's from our top markets are all going to go to Cannes for the whole week. You know, that alone is a big investment. A lot of companies don't put creativity at the forefront. So I think our investment in creativity, we have a capability team, our global commerce university, which is less interesting. Yeah, we have what we call a creative ladder, a 10 point scale, with sort of legendary at the top, ownable in the middle, destructive at the bottom. And we talk about our creative across all our brands, not just Heineken, and push the bound, really talk about creativity, which I don't think many companies do. It's very hard to judge your own. Everything you put out you think is wonderful, right? Actually having a sort of, I guess, a jury of your peers, also assess it, and sometimes they're not coming with the background and everything is hugely valuable. So, yeah, we truly believe in lifting up creativity across the organization. And it's a fundamental skill that we try and build in across our brand teams. And building it as a capability amongst our junior brand team members, because I think sometimes you may come into marketing, not having learnt the ropes, you know, and so it's really important. I can imagine how that would play out in the marketing team. How do you get the wider business, kind of on board, with the sort of work you're doing and the investment that goes behind it as well? Yeah, look, I think a lot of it is proving that creativity matters and that it amplifies, you know, your content that goes out, creative content will actually sell more beer than non-creative content. So, creativity, it's what I forget the multiplier, five times. And we have that data. We do allow market mix modeling and we can prove that creativity drives business. And we have things like system one, of course, and those things that they talk about that. So, proving its business outcome, I think, has been a really important part. And we know we fundamentally believe that that is true. And that's what helps at least for me to sell it to our CEO. No, it's so crucial. I remember, I mean, funny, mentioned system one, but I'm in the first time I ever used them. The creativity came out of the amazing campaign. I mean, it was honestly spectacular for a re-launch for Brownells on. And I remember presenting it and literally the room was like crickets. Literally, everyone was going, what was that about John? And I was like, oh no, they don't get the idea, this is terrible. And so I went away and I thought, how do I get this? How do I get them to see this? And I remember I gave John the Founder a system on a call and said, hey mate, help me out here. How do I get them to do this? And I got him in a couple of weeks later. And they were eating out of his hand. Yeah, yeah. Because he provided the science behind it and the data. And then at the end of the meeting, they're like, well, this is the most obvious thing ever. And I was like, what am I going to do two weeks ago? You were laughing at me. And now you're sat there going, this is really obvious. Exactly. And I think, obviously, marketing and science, I answered having that science back up. And if you think back to the great campaigns you remember, if someone mentioned a brand, you'll, first of all, recall the marketing and the great campaign versus anything else. So it does prove that it's embedded in your hardwired and your memory that great creative instantly makes brand recall. And in a world where you got, I don't know how many messages a day, 3,000 plus, that's super critical. So creativity has to cut through. It really, really does. I'm going to build that point in a second. But just quick before I do, any particular highlights for you in all those line winners if you're allowed to say. Oh, yeah. Well, I can give a big shout out to our Brazil team. They were one many awards. I don't know, maybe 10 awards of this one, which it could have been a Heineken. So it was built off the insight that if you all have friends who either your SMS or WhatsApp being, that they record their message rather than type it. And that creates quite a little bit of friction and tension. Some people are like, why on earth would you record a WhatsApp? You could have just called me or we could have met. Your message was so long, I didn't listen to it. So the insight there was actually, let's go against all those people that record their WhatsApp messages and incentivize them. It could have been a Heineken instead. Get a free Heineken if you submit your friends WhatsApp message and actually meet them in real life for a bar at a bar. And that won a number of awards at Heineken. And I think that's just a brilliant way of sort of saying, hey, there's just moments in life where you should, it could have been a Heineken instead. And we encourage people to get together. I love that a lot. It's fun as it's being Karen Black at the other day. And at the end of the just after interview, she said to me, whatever you do, never leave me a voice note, Jon. And she goes, in the time it took you to voice note me and me voice note you back, you could have just picked up the phone and we could have had a lovely chat. Exactly, yeah. Or you could have had a Heineken. Could have had even better, which would have been perfect. I wanted to touch on creative consistency. We did this bit of work a couple years ago, a system one called Compound Creativity, where we discovered actually that great creative work wears in. And I love, you've got an amazing example of this in terms of the world's most interesting math. Can you explain this? Because I don't think I've ever come across a situation like this where you've put some workouts pitch and the creative agency have come back and presented an old idea. So just explain this. Because I think this is genius. Yeah, so look, when I joined Heineken in the US in 2018, I actually came in running the Mexican portfolio, which is Dosekies, which I was talking about. about, which anite entered when we had had the most interesting man number two. We'd probably done probably the worst thing you can do, which is leave a legendary campaign behind and put a second most interesting man in the world out there, and it was met with a frosty reception, so that was canned, and we went on to what I would call some struggling years of landing and new, finding a point of view on Dosekis. And I went over to Amsterdam and came back as CMO, so I sort of was able to, you know, I'm going to crack Dosekis, it drove me mad when I was here, I'm going to crack Dosekis, and everything we did pointed to the fact that the most interesting man in the world, and stay thirsty, my friends, still lived on, and actually in the intervening 10 years, so we'd stopped the campaign in 2016, and it's now 2026, in those intervening 10 years, he, the man himself, and the meme, I don't always, but when I do, had lived on in social media, and so actually everyone still knew it, and we were like, you know what, I think there's an opportunity to reclaim, reclaim all those memes, you know, I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink Dosekis. It was such an ownable line, the man himself was so iconic and well known, and actually, you know, we tested it, of course, we tested it with younger consumers, who were not even legal drinking age when we stopped the campaign in 2016, and it's still known, and so we felt like that we were on to something, so when we went out to an agency, we actually decided to go and pitch, we gave the agencies the option, we had a fantastic briefing session, we talked about the legacy of the campaign, we talked about the creative desert years, as I called it, which I was sort of responsible for as well, and we said, look, we're putting it down, and we say, it used to be completely off the table, we're not going back to him, but if we did, that's an option, come back, and unanimously, actually, the agencies, all of them, all four that we pitched to, said we can bring him back, we will evolve it, we make it much more, we'll bring it back, make it relevant for today, it's a bit like my Freddy's story, make it relevant for today, but that he lives, that he can live on and stay thirsty, and that idea of taking the path less travelled, being a little risky, because you'll actually have a better story to tell at the bar, and yes, so we brought him back, the original himself as well, which was. And the same actor as well, same guy, yeah, we approached him, I remember meeting him in a pub, up just like 15 minutes north of our office, to say, what's he like? You know, over at Dosekis, we talk about the sort of possibility of bringing him back, and he's like, I'm up for it, so, yeah, that sort of started the ball rolling. So his fame has gone to another level, presumably? Yeah, he was always famous, like he never lost his fame, where the man and the actor sort of became a bloodline, but, you know, he don't, once he's on set, like he did, you know, there's nothing we haven't put the most interesting man through, he's written trains in India, you know, what do we have him do? He's painted a self-portrait blindfolded on the mountains in Chile, he's chased a tornado in a car, you know, you name it, he's done it, so he's been, he's had many stories to tell about what we've put him through over the years, yeah. Love that, yeah. He's one at life, doesn't he? Like become famous for one thing. Yeah. You know exactly. Yeah, yeah. I taught the marketers all day, many of them say the same thing, traffic is down, leads it down, and they're not sure why, until they realize what has changed, most of their customers now trust AI to recommend the right brands to them, and the first one that AI recommends they go with. Visibility in AI search comes down to where the AI trusts your content, but most brands have no idea where they stand, so how do you show up when someone asks AI about the things that you sell, with HubSpot AEO. HubSpot AEO shows you exactly where your brand stands in AI search and makes clear recommendations on what to do to improve it without having to guess. So when someone asks AI what to buy, you're already the answer. Try it for free at HubSpot.com/AEO. Another good example actually from your portfolio, which I know you worked on this beer and meretti. Yes, yeah, yeah. I think it's one of the highest scoring campaigns. Right. And it's just beautiful example of the role of provenance and history and heritage and being true to your roots as well. Well, you know, beer and meretti is like the biggest beer in Italy, but of course, selling it the Italian sort of, I guess, aura outside Italy was what we do with what we take, beer and meretti we take. It's sort of around being at the, you know, what are the Italians known for, being at a shared table, you know, the non-as-cooking, you know, their favorite pastor, you know, all getting together over a beer in a beautiful environment. It's at the table and we needed to bring that essence of Italy and everything that's wonderful about Italy, you know, to life outside Italy, right? And so, you know, that's why I think the power of what is beer and meretti, you know, and we always said that beer and meretti's spiritual home was was tuskeny in terms of that, that feeling people, especially from the UK, it's a massive brand, obviously, in the UK, you know, bringing that essence to life was super important. So I think the, all the work we did there, I think the whole visual world of beer and meretti is very clear what it is, how it's very social, it's multi-generational in a way. You know, it's, it's getting together, it's, it's enjoying life's simple pleasures, as we say, and simplicity is around great friends, family, over great food with a great beer, you know, and, yeah, I really, that those were special, special advertising, yeah. Always great to shoot in Italy too. I was going to say that was, that was a tough job on set, you know. Yes, exactly. We open, you know, we open in tuskeny, in a lovely old town. Break for a three hour lunch, you know, yes, yeah, yeah, so now it's awesome. I wanted to ask you a little bit about sponsorship, now I know you didn't sponsor World Cup, you know, but you were the official sponsor of soccer, but you do sponsor a lot of other things like golf and Formula One or so. What's your strategy in terms of sponsorship and how do you kind of get the return and investment because, like, you know, sponsorship costs are going up and up and up, aren't they? Yeah. Very challenging. And it is, yeah, agency fees, they're sort of the, what do we call it, the race to race and sponsorship, especially, you know, capturing eyeballs these days is tough, right? And live sport, in particular, is one of the few events that gets everyone's, you know, eyeballs. If you just looked at the success of, like, the New York Knicks, right, winning New York, like, everyone, everyone was glued to the TV, whether they were watching it or not, more in a bar. So, yeah, look, sponsorship, I think my rule of thumb is, you know, we can't spend everything on fees. It's nothing without activation and how you activate in a very clever way and it's about bringing the entire experience to life before, during and after, because sometimes the actual event itself is a weekend, right? So, like, we sponsor Formula One, the races move around the world. We have three Formula One's in the US. We have one in Miami, Vegas, and Austin. So we look at how we engage with the fans before, whilst we actually have the during the event and the fan zones and things actually at the event, but also the conversation about the drivers and the teams after the event. So, you know, making sure that you're not just spending it all on fees, that you're also activating. And honestly, I've worked in rules of thumb that were between, for every dollar you spend on fee, you should spend between two and four dollars on activation. So, I think that's the most important thing. And it's not about just slapping your logo on as the official beer, you know, we sponsor the US open, and we work a lot on driving that engagement. Like, it's the event of New York City. People are transiting through Grand Central Station to get there. How do we own Grand Central Station in the lead up, the anticipation, you know, we had referees, you know, now you can for our Heineken 0-0 in Grand Central Station. You know, it's those things, as I said, the before, during and after that we need to make sure we amplify across our sponsorships. Because the sponsorship itself is purely permission to play, really, isn't it? It is. You saw that the World Cup and I think Adidas came out top in there in terms of the amount of earned media they got, but the difference between some of the sponsors was why. No, exactly. You know, we sponsor Coachella as well, you know, from a music platform. We have the Heineken House, which is only branded stage where we curate the music. And yeah, a lot of it's about engagement, who's in the lineup, you know, you know, my daughter came with me to Coachella this year and she's shared her spot, like, "Mom, this is the Spotify list. I've made an entire three-hour session, but you to, you know, get out of your oldies, but goldies, you know, a music and listen to the stuff that, you know, that I'm going to be listening to." So, you know, it's how we engage in that and bring that experience to life across Coachella was really important for us to, yeah. Yeah. I talk about younger people and also to my women as well. One of the challenges I think beer's got as a category is it's kind of fairly traditionally male, isn't it? Yeah. But I noticed, again, just on the system one day, it was one of the best campaigns you did was a German one called Cheers for all school done, 4.6 star. And it played brilliantly on that kind of scenario where you stereotype the guy's having a beer, the girls having a cocktail, and the server assumes That's the way around and they swap it and it just gets funnier and funnier in different situations. Exactly. You know, women can drink beer too, right? Exactly. Exactly. So how are you bringing in kind of new people into the category and extending them to? Yeah. I mean, like I think beer in the past just had a bit of a bro, you know, what we used to call barbecues and bros, especially in the US with sometimes how it's been advertised. And women do drink beer, by the way, I drink beer. I think the Heineken entry into the non-alcoholic space has definitely unlocked that opportunity for us. So Heineken 00, which we launched in 2017, it's the biggest zero beer worldwide. And then we've extended into, like, different innovation now. We have Heineken 00 ultimate, which is triple zero, so zero cows, zero elk, zero sugar. Those things have bought a lot of women into the brand who may, you know, in a bar choose to drink some water or, you know, diet sodas. And so actually, we've extended the occasion a lot more through a lot of our innovation on non-alcoholic. We've also bought in flavors this year. So cold press lime, nectarine and juniper, which, you know, gives a little more flavor to beer that I think is important. So yeah, we've extended our, certainly, a track building, you know, younger and with women through our innovation in that category. You do a lot of innovation, I know, but what would you say are the ingredients of a successful piece of innovation? Because everyone knows the statistics, you know, in terms of 9 out of 10, you ever make it? I mean, yeah, there's a lot of doom, isn't there? There is a lot of doom. And I've had a, if anyone reads my LinkedIn profile, I've had a history of innovation with other companies as well. And it's not easy. You know, people can always talk about their successes, but there's usually a grave out of skeletons. Look, I think it's first and foremost, it has to fulfill a need. Like, you know, I always think the worst thing is if you've got a solution in search of a problem to solve. The extension into non-alcoholic did fulfill a need. You know, people want to feel like they're part of a group. But sometimes just do not want to drink alcohol and it played that role, right? You can fit in. We would say you can cheers with a beer. You can cheers with a high-knit, zero, zero. And there's not like questions, well, you're not drinking, you know? So it filled a need. We, it's still to, I think fundamentally, it still comes down to absolutely amazing product experience. Like, all the best marketing in the world can't band data over a poor product experience. If people all try it and if it doesn't taste great, they won't come back. And the mastery, our masterbrewers in the Netherlands, I think they worked on it for years and years and years to really perfect. I always say it's, it's Heineken without alcohol. It's not a non-alcoholic beer. It's Heineken, first and foremost, without alcohol and, you know, people say, oh my gosh, it is the best tasting non-alcoholic beer and it's because it is a great product. So for me, it fills a need. Then of course, let's say, wrap around the great marketing, tell people what it does. We've, you know, we launched with quite a shock tactic associated with, like, the fact that you could be seen drinking a beer in places where you never would be seen drinking a beer, like, in the office at lunchtime, driving a car, you know, so we had a famous shot by a California beach where a policeman comes up and the guy's sipping in a car. Because in the US, you cannot, what they call, have open container in a car, even your passengers. So it was quite sort of, I guess, disruptive because our message was, now you can, you can drink Heineken wherever, right? So I think disrupting this disruptive marketing was also a major part of it, but fundamentally fulfills a need, great product. Yeah. I love your phrase, a solution in search for a problem. Yeah. And I think it's always to work for, would say, let's make what we can sell and stop trying to sell what we can make, you know, because we often, as businesses, we often go, we need to shift this much volume in that particular production line and, and so on, we're thinking like what we can sell rather than actually what does the consumer want. I mean, and there's some, some sort of mantras too, which is sometimes the consumers don't know what they want, would Ford said if I asked them what they wanted, they would have said that they wanted a, you know, faster horse. But there's a bit of a balance, but I do think sometimes in big CPG corporates, we've got like, because we can make it and we think we can make it, we'll find someone who'll want to drink it. And I think this coming back to a fundamental consumer inside and a need is still important. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, talking about needs. Yeah. Yeah. One of the, one of the most surprising and stand out bits of marketing you've done recently was the Heinespartnership. I think LinkedIn was flooded with lots of love for it as well. And how did you put, well, firstly describe it for anyone who's not seen the partnership what it was. Yeah. And then how do you get to the point of doing it? Right. Because I've worked with some big organizations, getting two big organizations to collaborate, particularly where it's their core equity in their packaging as well. Yes. It's actually easy to do. Yes. I agree. Look, you know, two iconic brands, right? I think we have both over 150 year legacy. It's actually driven off a key insight. If you come back to it, especially in the US, if you ever go into a, like a bar, a hamburger joint, six pack carriers of beer are used as condiment carriers. So people, they'll have the bottle of ketchup stuck in it. They'll have often knives and forks and napkins and they'll have salt and pepper. And everyone's like, oh, wow, they're reusing our Heineken six pack carrier as a condiment carrier in a bar. So it was a habit that was sort of being done. And so we were like, you know what? What would be the ultimate thing, which is when you're having a beer, you're often ordering a hamburger, right? In these bars or wings or whatever, wouldn't it be great to have the condiment? So Heinz ketchup in the six pack carrier with, you know, take out one of our bottles, sacrifice one of our bottles for Heinz. So yeah, that was how it started. So it started off a fundamental thing that if you walk into a, especially a New Yorker or anywhere in the US, you'll see it. You'll see that sort of thing happening. Then it was approaching the team, but we've had a little bit of a, I guess a tip for tat rivalry with the Heinz social media team. They launched the beginning of this year, sometime this year, the ketchup keg. And they came out and they're like, we have a keg full of ketchup, you know? And this is what you need to, you know, dispense enormous amounts of ketchup for your barbecues and your cookouts. And we came out, we actually have a keg. We have a Heinz, a Heineken keg. And so we came out with, like a social media post that said, it had to be Heinken with our keg instead. And that started a little bit of rivalry between the two social media teams. So we did have that connection and then conversations top to top. Yeah, we managed to pull it off, yeah, because as you say, getting it signed off through your own legal corporate affairs, global stakeholders, imagine you have that on both sides. That's going to say that. But I think these days there's a willingness to lean into the culture of it. We were swept up with the World Cup, I guess, atmosphere. So yeah, we're super glad we made it happen. And I think it also proved to us that we can, we can be agile. You can make it happen. And so it gave us a taste for, I guess, you know, more creativity going forward, whether it's collaboration with Heinz or something else we can do, you know? I thought the design was very clever as well, wasn't it? Because you kind of had Heinz, yeah, the beginning of that logo and the corners, yeah, exactly. And you know, they have it has to be Heinz and we have it has to be Heinken. So yeah, it's very clear how it kind of works together. And how did that come to life in stores as well? Were you selling the pack like that? Yeah, I mean, pulling off that sort of, you know, at large scale, but token packs, packs, we have, you know, merchandise, so we have Heinken branded outfits and think Heinz and Heinken branded shirts. We used it a lot to just sort of drive, you know, social conversation, but did take, you know, even our employees can win, win shirts. So yeah, it was a lot of amplification through social media. And you know, there's a love of both brands in the US. So. And you got red in your logo as well, so it kind of, the red and the green together. Exactly. We're like a match made in heaven, yeah. I wanted to ask you, you know, we talked about sponsorship, advertising, you know, looking in from the outside, people are assuming us have an amazing glamorous life where you sort of on set meeting interesting people, going to interesting places. What's the, what will be surprised to learn about the role of a CMO compared to how they might perceive it to be? Yeah. I mean, people think, you know, I guess the number one thing is, oh, you must be the most super creative person, like you creating all these ideas. I think I employ people that, or work with great agencies, that create great ideas. I think the thing I say my mantra is how to keep creativity alive through the process, you know, because, you know, there's, there's legal requirements, there's corporate affairs, there's, there's attitude to risk-taking, there's creativity by, by committee sometimes. And how do you keep that process alive through all the systems? There's research, which you can also, as we know sometimes, you know, kill creativity. So I feel like my job is, is how do you keep creativity alive, take the data, it's not about ignoring, or research, or ignoring out, and certainly kind of ignore our legal teams and things. But how do you make sure that the, the environments right to, to let creativity happen? We talked a lot about that as a global CMO. mo group on honeykin at can, you know, what are those barriers? And I think that's, people would be surprised that sometimes, you know, I go home and go, did I keep creativity alive today, you know, and push the boundaries a little? I love that for a while. But sometimes you can get, especially I think with the rise of so much media, you can get canceled in a second. I think some people can be very nervous about being canceled or make the wrong statement. Others do have to have a point of view, otherwise, why are you here? So yeah, finding that balance, you know, and sometimes it does mean taking a little bit of a risk, you know? It does. I love that. I love how you phrase that. I often used to talk about providing the air cover, because what often people don't realize is how much air cover you provide, whether it's challenges from finance or supply chain or reasons why it's a bad idea, or that they throttle the idea before it's had a chance to grow, because the early ideas, often, you know, not the ideas you end up with, and they need time to kind of. Right, yes. Or the. I find, and I try and train this into some of our, like, we very much confuse execution with idea. The idea may be absolutely brilliant, but the execution of it is questionable. Yeah. Or we kill a great idea, because an execution has gone off the rails, and it wasn't true to the idea. So really going, it's just true to the idea, you know, the campaign idea, and then you're not killing something just because of one bad execution. And I think that's sometimes really hard to keep alive, because people judge things by the execution. And you're like, well, no, that's not. We could change the execution, you know? The idea is really, really sound, you know? So yeah, keeping that, yeah, keeping that alive through the process. That's huge, isn't it? Yeah. And what did you say makes a really great CMO? I think the other piece of advice I've been given is strategy is more about what you're not going to do than what you are going to do, because I think you get thrown with so many things, so many avenues you could go down and being very choiceful and saying no to certain things. That's why I think sometimes brands lose their way. Can I jump in on this conversation? Can I do this? Can I do that? So being very clear about what you're not going to do, and then being very purposeful about what you're going to do. I'm a big believer in consistency. I think, you know, and I've been a victim myself, come in, change things, you know? And I've learned even bringing back the most interesting man, the power of consistency, distinctive assets, you know, the same like tagline, the same, you know, the way you show up all the way through from every piece of content into the store. So yeah, for me, it's been very clear about what you are and what you're going to do, but also definitely what you're not going to do. Those things really compound, don't they? They kind of build on each other, and you know, the more you use in the more great ways you can change them. You just reset them then. Exactly. You can have a sort of brand Frankenstein, as I call it, because you've just sort of got on the latest bandwagon about everything, you know? Yeah. Especially, you know, you talk about leaning into the cultural conversation we did with Hines and things. It was a moment like we could, we could respond to Hines as a launch of the ketchup keg because we have a keg and we are in beer, but other brands tried to sort of, you know, wait in a little and say, well, it's not their, it's not their role, you know, so being very clear about where your role is, what you can involve yourself in, because otherwise I think you just, you know, just become noise. Yeah. Now move to round up. One question asks everybody, what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Actually, it's probably in relation to innovation. The strategy, quote, was definitely a great one, what's more about what you're not going to do than what you do, but the other one is innovation, kill early. Oh, really? Yeah. Don't vlog a dead horse. Yeah. So no one to cut your losses. Yeah. You know, I think sometimes things can linger on with innovation. So, and you know, we talk about like, you know, nine out of ten things fail, except some things are going to fail. And if you're up there, but then if you're on the winner, go, you know, yeah. Yeah. But it was, it was now former CEO of co-catchley who was speaking at an event I was at last year. And he was asked like, what, you know, what to stand out about his ten year at a CEO. And one of the phrases he uses, I became a zombie killer. Yes, yes. The amount of projects. No, you're right. And then he said, there were well-meaning people, they were in it for the right, you know, all the whole things. They were very passionate. Yes. But I just knew that they were just trying to keep something alive that should have been killed years ago. Yes. And it's taking resource away from doing the right thing. No, I totally agree. And, yeah, whilst I relate to innovation, it's actually your job, pet projects, things that keep reoccurring, we call it like whack-a-mole, you know, you've killed it and then it pops up somewhere else. Yeah, because it takes an enormous amount of resource and energy. So let's focus on the things that are really working, you know, and, yeah, I think it's a good mantra. And what people don't factory is the opportunity cost. Exactly. Like there was a cost that, what you're not doing. Yes. You should be doing. That's what the really important things, you know, the things that really matter, going that extra mile on the creative versus distracting on something else, you know, so yeah. Correct. Well, it's a massive congratulations on an amazing year, a creative brand of the year. That's amazing. Yeah. So it was a very well done and I'm glad you brought back the world's most interesting man as well. I know. Yes. That's great to see. And there are so many lessons in, you know, what you're doing and, yeah, I appreciate you showing. Anyway, thank you. And welcome to Heineken. Thank you. And anyone, anyone watching this, by the way, on YouTube, we'll see some of it. I know. See you later. And our giant bobblehead and most interesting man, yeah, so we got one on the table as well. So go check it out. But, Ali, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks so much. Good to have you. So I hope you enjoyed that episode of Uncensored CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now, by the way, I've got a new newsletter, so if you'd like to get my thoughts on the one thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the one thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast. Just launched Uncensored Renegades with the fabulous Corey Marchesoto. She is one of the world's best CMOs. She's an absolute rock star. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fix it. So check out that. It's in your feed. Uncensored Renegades. And finally, I want to give a huge thank you to my sponsor, System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast. It would not happen without them. It's a big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time.