May 12, 2015 | less than a minute read

Marketing like a start-up

Passle

Interesting move from Heineken which is marketing a new beer aimed at hipsters. Part of its marketing strategy is to hide the fact that there is a major company behind Blind pig, with a start-up style low profile launch primarily conducted through Instagram.

Heineken recognizes that going too big too fast with this beer would harm it in the long term.

It makes sense in the context of the beer itself, named and packaged to hark back to the prohibition era.

Will consumers see straight through this facade? Has it arrived a little too late considering that prohibition-style bars were in vogue half a decade ago? It'll be interesting to see how well it does, and whether it proves itself to be a marketing strategy worth following....

"My biggest fear is that it grows too big too quickly and that might sound a little bit odd," he says. "We have a very good reputation and very good capability in driving awareness from a brand marketing point of view and driving distribution rapidly. "That’s exactly what we shouldn’t do with this brand. Because then we’ll have a short term boost but then we’ll kill it forever." A TV ad, he explains, would destroy that brand strategy. Instead, Heineken will roll out a storytelling focussed digital and social media campaign with Instagram as the main platform. Heineken is marketing like a start-up with a low profile launch designed to add credibility to the product.