Heineken has designs on being the ‘Apple of beer’

The beer giant will use independent designers to crowdsource ideas for “packaging to advertising as well as industrial design and digital campaigns,” MW reports. It hopes the spirit of the campaigns will set it apart from brands that are focused on big budget advertising and sport and music sponsorship.

Heineken’s plans will be focused on its ‘Ideas Brewery’, an online innovation platform on which fans can share feedback about the brand. Its specific targets include more environmentally friendly beer packaging and an ‘Open Design Explorations’ scheme that will see it create new crowdsourced buildings.

Mark van Iterson, global head of design at Heineken, told Marketing Week: “The beer market is becoming overcrowded with music, football and sport related marketing and we’re trying to leverage design almost as an activation platform to make the brand stand out. It’s design that makes products premium and that’s also for a large part true for Heineken… We want to be like Apple in the beer market.”

He added: “We’re one of the very first brands in the FMCG category to use design in this way. When we talk about a design culture at Heineken we mean it in the broadest sense of the word, from packaging to glasses to logos.”

For the full story, see Heineken eyes ‘Apple of beer brands’ status.