HEROES OF THE NIGHT

TitleHEROES OF THE NIGHT
BrandANHEUSER-BUSCH INBEV GERMANY HOLDING GMBH
Product/ServiceBECK'S
Category A01. Fast Moving Consumer Goods
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

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

Popular beer brand Beck’s is a mandatory at every party in Germany and the perfect companion for a legendary night out. In 2018, Beck’s wanted to own the nightlife experience, so we made the brand become an integral part of the dialogue of consumers–by “hacking” our way into WhatsApp group chats: the social media place, where night out stories are started, documented and ended. A new use of social media to make the brand’s claim “You make it legendary.” experienceable in form of a unique hero comic! The outcome? Beck’s turned every chat protocol into an unforgettable piece of art.

Background

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 creative idea (30% of vote)

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 applied Machine-Learning-based character and image assignment (message sentiment & content) to automatically bring every message to life in shape of a comic hero statement. 10 heroes with a different character each, resembling typical night out personalities in your group of friends: the well-dressed charmer, the talkative one, the diva, and so on.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Freedom is a core value of the brand Beck’s. But in order to regain meaningfulness and relevancy in its target group, Beck’s had to redefine freedom – by making it tangible and experienceable. For this purpose, we needed to turn a traditional TVC brand into an online entertainment brand. Beck’s new role: encourage millennials to make choices without fearing the consequences. Or in short: Go ahead, don’t be afraid and show the world what’s possible – because “You make it legendary”. A credo that calls for real-life participation, creating and doing. The strategy was translated into interactive ideas putting the consumer first and the beer second, showing everyone that “great moments without you, simply aren’t great” and of course, that Beck’s without you, is nothing but a beer.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

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.

List the results (30% of vote)

With a possible 12 billion picture combinations, the app launched simultaneously in 155 markets around the world and quickly became the number third most downloaded App in the German App Store. Activation on owned and paid social media channels resulted in more than 22 million media impressions in the first week alone.