Convention:Drinking a domestic brand for ‘toriaezu beer’ at the beginning of meals with friends.

Cause:
Heineken Ape: Creating a trend by inventing a new beer drinking occasion ownable by Heineken based on the aperitivo idea.

Campaign:
Realizing the difficulties in directly competing with the tremendous ubiquity and power of the large domestic brands in typical drinking situations. Fallon invented a new beer consumption occasion for Heineken. Based on the European tradition of friends meeting after work for a beer prior to going on to their other activities, we launched the Heineken Ape program, designed to encourage restaurants to serve Heineken & tasty appetizers during the after work/before dinner time period. Utilizing primarily buss marketing and PR generating tactics, the campaign avoids head-to-head competition with domestic brands while still providing outstanding growth opportunity for Heineken.

Results:
Starting with just a few test restaurants, the campaign has proven incredibly successful and now involves over 500 restaurants in the Kanto & Kansai areas. Significant incremental business has been generated for Heineken and their restaurant partners and is also improving Heineken consumption even during non-apertivi time periods.