Title	HEINEKEN AND UEFA PRESENT THE OPENING PARTY POWERED BY DEFECTED
Brand	HEINEKEN
Product/Service	HEINEKEN AND HEINEKEN 0.0
Category	C02. Live Shows / Concerts / Festivals
Entrant	HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation	M&C SAATCHI SPORT & ENTERTAINMENT London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	DEFECTED RECORDS London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Toan Ravenscroft	M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment	Managing Director
Jasper Hunter	M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment	Managing Director
Rowie Meijer	M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment	Account Manager
Alex Wilkinson	M&C saatchi Sport & Entertainment	Business Director
James Kirkham	Defected Records	Chief Commercial Officer
Sam Mooney	Defected Records	Producer
George Pritchard	Defected Records	Bookings Manager

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Heineken have had a relationship with the UEFA Champions League for over 25 years and become synonymous with brilliant brand activations. One of their rights is to host the official after-party of the UEFA Champions League Final and on any usual year we would have done just that. This being 2020 however, we needed a new plan. From disappointment, we saw the opportunity to innovate digitally and create a new type of activation. This was a truly global, digitally led, live brand activation bringing the worlds of football and music together like never before for fans around the world.

Background

Situation: In June, UEFA announced they would finish the UEFA Champions League season in a knockout tournament in Lisbon, whilst the UEFA Europa League finished in similar fashion in Cologne, across two weeks in August. This once-in-a-generation festival of European football didn’t need a closing party, it needed an Opening Party. Brief: Create an opening party for fans around the world to mark the return of football whilst socialising responsibly from their homes over an ice-cold Heineken. Objectives: 1. Sponsorship association and brand uplift. We needed to regain Heineken's position as the number one sponsor associated with the UCL and deliver brand uplift ahead of the football restarting. 2. Global uptake. A global activation that could be used by Heineken Global and as many key Heineken markets as possible. 3. Reach & engagement: We needed to engage meaningfully with as many fans around the world as possible.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The Opening Party, presented by Heineken & UEFA, powered by Defected. 8 DJs, 8 locations, 4 footballing legends, 2 trophies, 1 eight hour livestream Partnering with Defected Records & our existing partner UEFA we created a unique global event that brought the worlds of football and music together like never before. A single livestream broadcast across a variety of global and local social platforms on one day. 8 hand-picked, world-famous DJs played hour-long sets, all stitched together into a seamless opening party that took fans on a varied football and musical journey on the eve of the UEFA Champions League Final 8s in Lisbon. The pinnacle saw Thierry Henry introduce Idris Elba headlining a show-stopping set that brought house music culture and the live football fan experience together 80m up at the A’Dam Toren in Amsterdam, flanked by the official UEFA Champions League & Europa League.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Bringing passions together Our global insights showed us that football and music are the two global passions that unite our target audience around the world like nothing else, so we decided to tap into this and create a global moment celebrating both. Partner not paid The power of this activation was in utilising the strengths of the various partners involved. Defected brought huge music credibility, UEFA a massive football engaged audience and Heineken a flair for events and experiences unlike any other brand. Playing to these strengths allowed us to obtain incredible talent, reach huge engaged audiences and deliver seamless brand messaging. Firework moment and long tail distribution Our 8-hour live event provided the focus of the activity and the headline grabbing numbers but the long tail approach of resurfacing content for the following month in various formats allowed us to grow total viewership significantly.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Timeline: Time was against us throughout this project as the UCL & UEL restarts in the second week of August were only announced on the 17th of June. This was the day we set ourselves our brief to mark the return of European football in a way only Heineken could. This gave us 53 days to conceive, create, programme, produce and air our live event. Scale: We filmed each of our 8 DJs in locations around the world from Sao Paulo to Amsterdam, Dresden to London giving the live event an increased sense of texture and visual intrigue. Implementation: We developed a global promotional plan, featuring a suite of assets optimised by channel and a full comms plan for a two-week intensive period of promotion across owned, earned, paid and partner channels. The event was than hosted on Defected & Heineken channels and cross promoted by UEFA and the artists.

List the results (30% of vote)

1. Regain sponsorship association From August (pre-UCL super 8) to September (post-UCL Final), spontaneous UCL sponsorship awareness for Heineken increased: • + 8.6 percentage points for the Heineken target audience • + 4.6 percentage points for football fans • + 2.2 percentage points for the general global population Source: Blauw UCL Tracker 2. Global Uptake 97 countries accessed the livestream (42 in Europe) 10 Heineken markets delivered local campaigns including Brazil, China, Mexico and India 3. Brand Uplift 23% brand uplift vs benchmarked period on Heineken Intelligence dashboard 4. Reach & Engagement The total potential reach across all elements of the campaign was 330 million. The show received 7.1M livestream views with a total of 13.1M campaign video views Average livestream watch time was 17 minutes across Defected channels.