How Heineken became creative brand of the year - Ali Payne

23:15He's ridden trains in India. You know, what did 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. Love that.

23:33Ali Payne:He's one at life, hasn't he? Like become famous for one thing. You'll never be out of work again. I talk with marketers all day. Many of them say the same thing. Traffic is down, leads are 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 whether 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 forward slash aeo another uh good example actually from your portfolio which i know you worked on is beer and moretti yes yeah which i know going back to system one database here i think is 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 moretti is like the biggest beer in Italy.

24:50But of course, selling the Italian sort of, I guess, aura outside Italy was what we do, what we take, Bimretti we take. It's sort of around being at the, what are Italians known for? Being at a shared table, the nonnas cooking, their favourite pasta, 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 Bia Moretti, you know, and we always said that Bia Moretti's spiritual home was Tuscany in terms of that feeling.

25:34People are 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 all the work we did there, I think the whole visual world of Beer Moretti is very clear. What it is, how it's very social, it's multi-generational in a way. You know, it's getting together, 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. Yeah, I really, those were special advertising. Always great to shoot in Italy too. I was going to say, that was a tough job on set.

26:12Yes, exactly.

26:12Ali Payne:We open in Tuscany. That's right. In a lovely old town. Break for a three-hour lunch, you know. Yes. Yeah. So, no, it's awesome. I wanted to ask you a little bit about sponsorship. Now, I know you didn't sponsor the World Cup, obviously. But you were the official sponsor of soccer. Yeah. But you do sponsor a lot of other things. We do, yes. Like the golf and Formula One and so on. What's your strategy in terms of sponsorship? And how do you kind of get the return on investment? because, you know, sponsorship costs are going up and up and up, aren't they? Yeah. It's very challenging. And it is, yeah.

26:42Agency fees, there's 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 the New York Knicks, right, winning New York, Like everyone was glued to the TV, whether they were watching at home or 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.

27:22Because 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 1s 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 and it's not about just slapping your logo on as the official beer you know we we sponsor the u.s open and we we work a lot on driving that engagement like it's 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.

28:27You know, we had referees, reffing, you know, now you can for our Heineken 00 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.

28:42Ali Payne:You're right, because the sponsorship itself is purely permission to play, really, isn't it? It is, yeah. You saw that at the World Cup. I mean, I think Adidas came out top, didn't they, in terms of the amount of earned media they got but the difference between some of the sponsors was wild no exactly yeah you know we sponsor Coachella as well you know from music platform we have the like Heineken 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 uh you know my daughter came with me to 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 uh you know music and listen to the stuff that you know that i that i'm going to be listening to so you know it's it's how we engage in that and bring that experience to life across coachella was really important for us too yeah i talk about younger people and also to my women as well um one of the challenges i think beer has got as a category is it's kind of fairly traditionally male isn't that.

29:42Ali Payne:But I noticed, again, just on the system one database, one of the best campaigns he did was a German one called Cheers for All scored 4.6 star. And it played brilliantly on that kind of scenario where it's stereotype. The guy's having a beer, the girl's having a cocktail, and the server assumes that's the way around. And then they swap it. And it just gets funnier and funnier in different situations. Exactly. Yeah. Women can drink beer too, right? Exactly. Exactly. So how are you bringing in kind of new people into the category? Yes, I mean, yeah, like I think beer in the past has 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.

30:23And women do drink beer, by the way. I drink beer. I think the Heineken, you know, entry into the non-Alk space has definitely unlocked that opportunity for us. So, you know, Heineken Zero Zero, which we launched in 2017, it's the biggest, you know, zero beer worldwide. And then like we've extended into, you know, like different innovation. Now we have Heineken Zero Zero Ultimate, which is, you know, triple zero. So zero cows, zero elk, zero sugar. You know, those things have brought a lot of women into the brand who may, you know, in a bar choose to drink some water or, you know, diet sodas. So actually we've extended the occasion a lot more through a lot of our innovation.

31:09We've also brought in flavors this year. So cold pressed 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 building, you know, younger and with women through our innovation in that category.

31:28Ali Payne:And 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 nine out of ten. Yeah, innovation. Never 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 graveyard of skeletons. Look, I think it's first and foremost, it has to fulfill a need.

32:01Like, 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-alc 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 Heineken 00. And there's not like questions. Well, you're not drinking, you know. So it filled a need. It still, I think fundamentally, it still comes down to absolutely amazing product experience. Like all the best marketing in the world can't bandaid over a poor product experience.

32:40People will try it and if it doesn't taste great, they won't come back. And the mastery, our master brewers in the Netherlands, I think they worked on it for years and years and years to really perfect. I always say 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, 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.

33:29you 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 in the u.s 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

33:58Ali Payne:a solution in search for a problem. I remember a CEO I used to work for would say, let's make what we can sell and stop trying to sell what we can make. Yes, exactly. Because we often, as businesses, we often go, we need to shift this much volume in that particular production line and so on. We're thinking like what we can sell rather than actually what does the consumer want. I mean, and there is some sort of mantras too, which is sometimes the consumers don't know what they want. What Ford said, if I asked them what they wanted, they would have said that they wanted a faster horse. So there's a bit of a balance.

34:29But 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 insight and a need is still important. Absolutely.

34:46Ali Payne:Now talking about needs, one of the most surprising and standout bits of marketing you've done recently was the Heinz partnership. I think LinkedIn was flooded with lots of love for it as well. how did you put well firstly describe it for anyone who's not seen the partnership what it was and then how do you get to the point of doing it because i've worked in some big organizations getting two big organizations to collaborate particularly where it's their core equity and their packaging as well is not easy to do yes i agree look um 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 go into a like a bar, a hamburger joint, six pack carriers of beer are used as condiment carriers.

35:35So people, they'll have the bottle of ketchup stuck in it. They'll have often knives and forks and napkins and they'll have, you know, 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?

36:14So, 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 U.S., 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.

36:50We have a Heinz, a Heineken keg. and so we came out with like a social media post that said it had to be Hein-Eken with our keg instead and that started a little bit of a 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.

37:21Ali Payne:I was going to say, that's not easy. 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 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, you had the beginning of their logo and then Enneken is the end of yours, which is good.

37:54And, you know, they have it has to be Heinz and we have it has to be Heineken. So, yeah. Yeah, it's very clever how it kind of works together.

37:59Ali Payne: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, we have, you know, merchandise. So we have Heineken branded outfits and Heinz and Heineken 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 shirts. So, yeah, it was a lot of amplification through social media. And, you know, there's a love of both brands in the U.S. And you've got red in your logo as well. So kind of the red and the green together.

38:37Ali Payne:Exactly. Yeah. Weirdly, we're like a match made in heaven. Yeah, it didn't feel that unusual. Yes. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you know, we talked a lot about sponsorship, advertising, you know, looking in from the outside, people assume you must have this amazing, glamorous life where you're sort of on set meeting interesting people, going to interesting places. What's the, what would people 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.

39:05Like you're creating all these ideas. I think I employ people that 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 legal requirements, there's corporate affairs, there's attitude to risk taking, there's creativity by committee sometimes. And how do you keep that process alive through all the systems? There's research, which can also, as we know, sometimes, you know, kill creativity. So I feel like my job is how do you keep creativity alive? Take the data. It's not about ignoring research or ignoring our, we certainly can't ignore our legal teams and things.

39:49But how do you make sure that the environment's right to let creativity happen? We talked a lot about that as a global CMO group on Heineken at Cannes, 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 phrase but sometimes you can get especially I think with with the rise of so much media you can get cancelled in a second I think some people can be very nervous about being cancelled or make the wrong statement brands 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.

40:36It does. I love that.

40:38Ali Payne:I love how you phrased that. I often used to talk about providing the air cover. Yes. 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 are often, you know, not the ideas you end up with and they need time to kind of breathe, don't they? 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.

41:14Yeah. 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 alive through the process. That's huge, that, isn't it?

41:44Ali Payne:And what would 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 inconsistency. 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 being very clear about what you what you are and what you're gonna do but also definitely what you're not gonna do yeah those things really compound don't they they kind of build on each other and you know the more you use them the more they grow whereas if you 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 um especially you know you talk about leaning into the cultural conversation we did with heinz and things there was a moment like we could we could respond to heinz's launch of the ketchup keg because we we have a keg and we are in beer but other brands tried to sort of you know wade in a little and It's like, well, it's not their role, you know.

43:22So 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.

43:29Ali Payne:Now, move us around up. One question I ask 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. It's more about what you're not going to do than what you do. But the other one is, in innovation, kill early. Oh, yes. Yes. Don't flog a dead horse. So know when 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 10 things fail, except some things are going to fail. And if you're, but then if you're on the winner, go, you know?

44:04Yeah.

44:04Ali Payne:I think I heard a, it was now former CEO of Coke, actually, who was speaking at an event I was at last year. And he was asked, like, what, you know, what will stand out about his tenure as CEO? And one of the phrases he uses, I became a zombie killer. Yes, yes, exactly. He said the amount of projects. No, you're right. And he said they were well-meaning people. They were in it for the right reason, 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. and it's taking resource away from doing the right thing.

44:35No, I totally agree. And yeah, whilst I relate it to innovation, it's actually your job.

44:40Ali Payne:Yeah, yeah. 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 factor in is the opportunity cost. Exactly. There is a cost of what you're not doing. Yes, yeah. That you should be doing. Like let's sweat 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.

45:12So, yeah.

45:13Ali Payne:Couldn't agree with that. Well, listen, massive congratulations on an amazing year. Creative brand of the year. That's amazing. Yes. So very well done. And glad you brought back the world's most interesting man as well. That's great to see. And there are so many lessons in, you know, what you're doing. And so I appreciate you sharing it. Anyway, thank you. And welcome to Heineken's. Thank you. Headquarters here in the US. Anyone watching this, by the way, on YouTube will see some of it in the background. I know. See our giant bobblehead and most interesting man. Yeah, we've got one on the table as well, so go check it out.

45:44Ali, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks so much. Good to have you.

45:47Ali Payne: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 Cori Marchesotto. 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.

46:24Ali Payne:They generously provide so much support for this podcast. It would not happen without them. So big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time.