Know The Signs

On October 29th 2009, Heineken officially launched its second global responsible drinking campaign. After the success of last year’s Enjoy Heineken Responsibly campaign, Heineken continues to talk about the signs people start to show when they’ve had one too many. The user is provided with tools through which they can show their friends something about self-awareness on a night out. With the iPhone “Breathalyzer” and the social network application “Tag of Shame” Heineken is enabling a conversation between friends.

The brewery want to prompt greater self-awareness amongst Beer drinkers that sometimes have that one too many, and ruin the night out for themselves and for their friends. They want to send this message by engaging with our audience, not preaching to them.
Their research shows that people do not respond well to being patronized by brands or governments. But they are open to receive a light-hearted responsible drinking message from a brand as well as responding to subtle messages from their friends about their alcohol consumption.

The website is the focus of the Know The Signs campaign (see image above and video below), where you can interact with the message and enjoy learning how to spot the key signs of when someone has had that one too many to drink.
When you enter the website, you see a large TV screen showing CCTV images of a bar. You’ll need to watch the footage and try and spot the ‘signs’ – those little clues that tell you it’s all about to go wrong.

This is a clickable video, you can interact:

With last year’s Knowthesigns.com the brewery got the chance to engage with people by using a serious message in a light-hearted way. The website became a huge success with more than 1 million visits and based on feedback from the users they decided to re-launch the website.
The target audience is young people from Legal Drinking Age up to 35yr olds, who must admit they sometimes have one too many to drink.

Two other important campaigns items are involved, a Social Network App and a iPhone App.
The Social Network App, “Tag of Shame” is a tool for the morning after a night out, to remind friends of their embarrassing behaviour. The “Breathalyzer” iPhone app turns a iPhone into a realistic breathalyzer and it’s an intelligent and humorous way of nudging a friend, if he is showing the signs.

iPhone app:

Two campaign video’s:

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