HEROES OF THE NIGHT

TitleHEROES OF THE NIGHT
BrandANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV GERMANY HOLDING GMBH
Product/ServiceBECK'S
Category A04. Digital Illustration & Image Design
Entrant SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
Idea Creation SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
Media Placement SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
Media Placement 2 PLAN.NET Munich, GERMANY
Production SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Munich, GERMANY
Production 2 PLAN.NET Munich, GERMANY
Additional Company MATTHIAS SCHARDT Wuppertal, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Alexander Schill SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Global Chief Creative Officer
Thomas Heyen SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Managing Partner
Markus Kremer SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Managing Partner
Florian Klietz SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Managing Partner
Kristian von Elm SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Management Supervisor
Mariah Kattmann SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Junior Account Manager
Sebastien Stabenau SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Design Director
Ronnie Patt SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Creative Director Art
Jan-Erik Scheibner SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Senior Copywriter
Matthias Schardt Matthias Schardt Illustrator
Markus Maczey PLAN.NET Managing Director / CEO
Jonas Heitzer PLAN.NET Creative Coder
Alexander Kneifel PLAN.NET Junior UX/UI Designer
Marco Dinoto PLAN.NET Trainee Account Management
Jeferson Lopes Cocate SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Senior Account Manager
Efim Tamplon PLAN.NET Junior Creative Coder
Lee Sharrock SERVICEPLAN GERMANY Global PR

Describe the creative idea

Over the last few years, younger target groups are increasingly turning away from drinking beer. At the same time, it becomes harder for brands to reach them via traditional channels like TV – since they’re spending lots of time on social platforms like WhatsApp. So, Beck’s was looking for a way to become part of the conversation again. During a time where our target group was flocking to cinemas to see Marvel Superhero films, we came up with the perfect solution: “Heroes of the Night”. The first app that turns every WhatsApp group chat into an individualized superhero comic.

Describe the execution

We developed the first mobile app using user-generated, real-time data from WhatsApp group chats to turn you and your friends into heroes of a legendary comic. Every comic is fully customizable and a unique piece of creativity, based on geo- and time-specific context provided by WhatsApp. The time the message is sent determines the time shown on the clocks in the comic! And the location of your night out is reflected in the comic’s title header – for example taking the shape of the Frankfurt skyline or the Hamburg harbor. How we did it? We wanted to develop an app that allows your WhatsApp group chats to turn into a comic, so the first thing we had to do was: Create a comic! We invented ten different night out heroes, each resembling a typical personality in your group of friends – and brought them to life in more than 300 hand-drawn illustrations, that were digitalized to suit the WhatsApp format and could be shared as jpegs or pdf on all social media platforms. To get there, all you had to do is download the app from the App Store and connect it with WhatsApp. With the tap of a finger, the app automatically generates your comic – assigning the best possible image to every message and according to name, based on chat context and sentiment. All fully created by artificial intelligence and yet completely customizable by yourself.