I’ve been seeing links and references to this Heineken commercial all morning and I thought to myself “how good can it be?” Then I finally watched it after a friend posted it to Facebook. It’s absolutely brilliant, to quote my friend (Thanks C!), and I actually got choked up at the end. As you know, Pepsi sh-t the bed with their stupid protest commercial featuring gorgeous dissenters and Kendall Jenner solving all the world’s differences by handing out Pepsi to cops. It was whitewashing the protest movement by positioning Kendall as a savior figure and it was just an awful, offensive ad.
Heineken tackled these type of issues in their new ad and instead of stepping in it like Pepsi they ended up with a powerful, authentic ad. In case you can’t watch it, Heineken’s four and a half minute commercial (above) sets up three different sets of two strangers to meet. They’re all British people. One is a woman of color who speaks alone to the camera about how she’s a leftist and is 100% a feminist. She is paired with a white guy who tells the camera that he’s from “the new right” and who calls feminism “man hating.” The two get together in a warehouse without knowing anything about each other and start building chairs using directions.
The other two couples are a climate change activist and a climate change denier, both white men, and a white transgender woman paired with a white conservative man who says ahead of time that being transgender “is not right.” They also don’t know any of these things about each other ahead of time.
As the couples build stuff together they take breaks to sit and ask each other personal questions. They describe themselves and they try to find their commonalities. The transgender women sums it up. “We know each other better than people who’ve known each other for 10 minutes should.” They give each other compliments and reveal their vulnerabilities, all without discussing “politics.”
After they’re done talking they finish the building project, it’s a bar, and each couple takes out two beers from a cooler and puts them on the bar. They get shown the intro videos they recorded in which it’s revealed that their politics are totally opposite to the person they’ve just gotten to know. The side eyes they give each other are priceless. They’re given the choice to stay and have a beer or to leave at that point, and they all choose to stay. The anti-transgender guy asks the woman to keep in touch and they agree to text each other and let their partners know. It’s an incredible ad about the ways we can get to know people with totally opposite viewpoints to us.
I have relationships like this with a few people with personal belief systems which are antithetical to mine. One is my hairdresser, because I got to know him on a personal level before I knew his politics and also because I rely on him. When you get to know someone first and share your problems and commonalities before you focus on your differences, you can really bond. I don’t have a lot of faith that you can reach agreements on politics, that’s been more difficult in my experience. I just tend to avoid talking about it with those people. You don’t have to always agree to be friends with someone, and this ad shows that well.
There are studies which show that getting two strangers to ask each other personal questions and reveal their vulnerabilities can foster feelings of closeness quite quickly. I go to AA and see this often with my friends there. So I won’t be having any Heineken, but if I still drank I would definitely be more inclined to choose this brand.
Great ad, but the real test is whether they’d stay and discuss without the beer. Because, mmm.. Beer.
Agreed. Because if it was a Natty Lite, I would have walked away. 😉
Personally I hate beer, especially Heineken…
Heineken? Sorry but I would walk away from that skunk.
And Heineken-lovers please don’t come at me until you’ve tried Trillium. Or Nightshift. Or Lawsons Finest. Or any number of delicious craft beers 😉
Great ad though.
It kills me that they put it in a green bottle. Light degrades beer, green bottles offer no protection.
When I was a college kid I thought Heinie was quality beer. Glad I know better now! And local is so important. Thank goodness for the craft beer boom.
Cute commercial, though!
Yeah it’s a shame this great ad is for such a shitty beer
@Luca76 – Personally I love beer but totally with you on hating Heineken…
@Kitten – I think in that context, as much as I’m not a fan, I would have stayed and drank that skunk. Now, if it had been Bud, or Miller or any of the light variations – there is no way.
Great ad though.
No I know. I was just being a petty beer snob, mia girl 😉
I used to love Heineken, but I know better now! 🙂
Great commercial! This is how it is done, Pepsi! :p
Kitten – I was just teasing but listen, I am the worst kind of petty beer snob… I will literally not drink any at all if my options are things like Heineken, Bud, Miller, Coors, etc. It’s only IPAs and Ales (and I can be snobby about those too!).
I once visited my boyfriend’s home town that is in the middle of nowhere. Trying to limit my expectations of what they would have in stock at the local bar, I asked for a bottle of Miller Light.
A guy at the bar turned around and said, “Oh! Well aren’t you fancy?!?” I asked how it was fancy? He replied, “You want a BOTTLE of beer!”
I realized everyone at the bar was drinking cans of beer! They were mostly Stag and some others I’d never seen before. I felt like I was in another world.
@Betty rose. I think they would have since they pretty much spent most of their time talking before the beer made its appearance.
I’m not much of a Heineken drinker. Give me a Corona or a Stella.
I would love to stay and discuss over a good handcraft IPA but I have to say, very good ad. This is how messages are transmitted, Pepsi.
Excellent ad, watch it if you have the time.
It’s a remarkably brilliant use of a psychology experiment.
Ok so I thought about this all day, and I M kind of 180ing. I really don’t like how all these opinions were presented as equal. They aren’t.
I understand the power of being understood, and how connection is integral to spur change, but I strongly dislike the narrative that ignorance is equal to informed opinion, or tolerance.
You see change in the trans-bigot couple, but that’s because she let him hurt her, so she could create dialogue. She shouldn’t be expected to do that.
I feel like this commercial is real life often. Mostly minorities, trying to talk to the majority, who will only listen if they’ve been forced into intimacy.
Am I way off base here?
Nope, I´m with you 100 percent. They are not mere differences in opinions and they are not equal — morally, factually, and in terms of power imbalance. It annoys me, minorities/oppressed individuals should not be expected to be cool with folks who deny their humanity. They are busy surviving, asshats can go educate themselves!
Thank you, I felt the same. I appreciate the thought behind it and encouraging people to engage, but I very strongly agree that the opinions are not equal.
These are not people who have differing beliefs about religion, the economy, art, etc. One man is denying scientific facts. The other two, frankly, are the face of oppression, and their partners in this task simply want equality and rights. These things are not equal, should not be presented as such, and should not be compromised on.
This is such a cool ad.
Cool!
This is how you do it. This is how you create an ad aligned with current issues that makes you think about something difficult and challenging.
*Where are my kleenex?*
Me too-it made me teary 🙂
If it was only that easy , and it should be .
Things get complicated when someone’s ‘political differences’ are all about how a group of people’s existence is ‘wrong’ though, or about how one group of people not shutting up about inequality and being submissive is ‘( )-hating’. The climate change denier would have been the least offensive one.
But this commercial is definitely better than the pepsi one.
Its very interesting and yea. Misty eyed over the transgender part.
It’s basic group vs individual. The group will support from a general belief that needs limited support since so many already feel the same way.
An individual is more open minded. Blank slate. Not carrying or currently being influenced by another’s opinion.
People are beautiful. Groups can be madness.
I love this commercial
My best friend and I have very different beliefs (e.g. she’s quite religious, is on the conservative side, I’m very liberal, and etc) but it doesn’t affect us all that much. Just because we don’t agree 100% on every issue doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.
I have some family members/friends/acquaintances with really different beliefs on some issues too. Some are close, some are not so close. When certain topics come up, it’ll either turn into a big (but mostly friendly) discussion or a more heated/argumentative conversation. But one thing I’m glad about is that even with the ‘really different’ ones who are either religious or more conservative, they’re all anti-Trump. What’s interesting is that some of the ones who wouldn’t have minded as much or may have even agreed with some of the misogyny of the right and Trump were against him only because of the racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, some who didn’t mind the homophobia and transphobia on the right (or even agree with it) are against him specifically because of the misogyny and assaults, etc. It’s funny to see how people pick and choose.
It’s still an ad, so highly skeptical of the veracity of the scenarios, but it’s well done for what it is and certainly has a “make you think” quality and positivity that is much-needed in the current climate.
It’s an amazing and honest ad.
I do hate the beer (I love stella) but it’s a great message.
So Beers Then, next time get the gals a round of Heinekens! yes! got it!
But all and all Cute for them for not putting their foot deeply down the new Era of Corporate Foolish Bullsh!t, maybe United wants to discuss with this ad agency
Aw what a tear jerker! Love the ad!
I really loved this ad. The message is brilliant, in that as mature rational people, there can be dialogue between us rather than blind hatred.
I’m with Kitten the beer snob – As a Canadian gal, I much prefer a good craft beer too!
Sure, it’s a good message but I’m not keen on the rather longwinded and borderline twee execution.
Much better than Pepsi! And I still drink Heinekensependibg on what’s on offer and from where. It’s beer. Me happy.
What? Me? No, I’ve just been cutting onions…
This video brought tears to my eyes. I loved it. Still don’t want to drink the beer though.
Reminds me of that Dutch TV commercial (for it’s TV channel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD8tjhVO1Tc
@Fergus: you mean the ad for the Danish tv channel? That is indeed a great ad.
You know what? Non-transgender people don’t need to UNDERSTAND being transgender. They just need to ACCEPT that some people are transgender and treat them like every other human being on the planet.
I get the idea behind it, but I still don’t like it. It makes it seems as if a white male’s resentment of a minority females’ struggle for equality, is somehow just as important or valid as the woman’s struggle. Or that the person who dislikes transgendered people is on equal footing as the person who has no choice about being transgendered.
I know this is a different subject, but it reminds me of how the press covered Clinton’s emails as if it was on the same level as Trump’s illegal, racist, and harmful policies. It’s trying to “equate” two things in people’s minds that should not be equal.
This. Two of the three groups have people that they could legit be afraid of, in other circumstances. The white alt-right man with a feminist WOC, the transphobic man with a transwoman.
I was uncomfortable that the groups of people had one issue that they disagreed on, and it was issues that have caused violence in the real world. And that only one of the two people needed to feel fear, the other one only felt foolish.
So much better ad than the Pepsi one, but… I still didn’t really like it.
Yeah, that sums up the one thing I disliked about the ad.
False equivalences, yes.
Yes!
I hate beer. But I’d buy some Heineken just to say thanks for this brillant – and so needed theses days – ad.
Now this is how you do it. Well done.
I believe people can change if they have the right exposure in the right environment. The transgender pairing was a perfect example. He knew straight away that he’d possibly been wrong to have those views.
He could see she was a smart, beautiful woman and that’s all that mattered. He actually acknowledged how he could’ve been wrong with his views.
Another expample here in Australia is an old white conservative radio / TV personality becoming friends with a young muslim comedian on ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’. It was wonderful to watch and I can say this man’s attitudes have now changed!
You can read a bit about it here:
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/steve-price-im-a-celebrity-get-me-out-of-here-changed-my-view-of-muslims-20170309-guuz1z.html
Companies don’t care, they just want to make money and use whatever is popular at the moment to do so. Heineken obviously have a better marketing team than Pepsi, but it’s just silly to think that they care more or are more ‘socially conscious’. It’s about money.