In 2015, The Gin&Tonic trend was at an all-time high. Heineken, a leading global brewery, realised that ‘it’s crowded at the bar’; mixed drinks, cocktails and other new beverages have given consumers a huge range of options. We set out on an explorative journey to develop fresh, new propositions to put beer back in the spotlight. We co-created new beer varieties with experts and consumers from three different continents.

The core of this international (Asia, Europe and US) project consisted of three pressure-cooker-style development weeks. In each country we linked up with the local brand team for an immersive deep dive into local customs, trends and developments. With those experiences in mind, we co-created with foodies, bartenders, club owners, packaging designers and other style-savvy creatives – AND our client – to come up with new ways of ‘being cooler than Gin & Tonic’. These were then enriched with lead customers.

The results? We co-created several pilot-ready concepts for key portfolio brands. The experience was a combination of global learning and local insights. And finally the client team embraced a faster, fresher and stronger innovation approach as the new standard.