Amstel held a festival in Brazil that transformed the Pinheiros River into a canal befitting the brand's Dutch heritage, treating attendees to an array of musical and artistic acts in the process.
The first objective of Amstel, a Heineken beer brand, was to create an experience that would link Amstel with the city of Amsterdam in a new, authentic, and surprising way. The second was to make the quality of Amstel's beer more noticeable to a variety of targets, touching all of the brand's different communities.
To achieve these goals, Amstel developed "Spirit of Amsterdam," a free event that attracted more than 1,600 to an experience that reimagined the Pinheiros River as a canal befitting the brand's Dutch heritage.
Amstel has been growing closer to Brazilian audiences over the years, providing experiences that convey the spirit of the brand, with its attributes of freedom, uniqueness, and authenticity — all reflections of life in Amsterdam.
Amstel's main target was brand lovers, who, in recent years, have come to include members of the LGBTQIAPN+ community — so Amstel's event included parties and artists who had a connection with this audience.
The event's main proposition was to toast the freedom to be whomever you want to be, appealing to an audience that was diverse in every sense of the word. And the strategy that the brand used to connect with this audience was to change the line-up every night, musically, with the headlining and smaller shows, and artistically, with dance performances. That way, Amstel was able to appeal to a wider variety of people, and not only members of the LGBTQIAPN+ community.
Amstel's strategy was to work the pre-event heavily, using the brand's channels to direct consumers to ticket information. During the event, the brand used different digital influencers with different thematic resonances (e.g., the LGBTQIAPN+ community, music, art, performances, traveling, and lifestyle), so as to appeal to a diverse audience.
Because it was an event that was new and outside of the usual and weekly schedule of people, Amstel focused on an awareness campaign that could impact the largest number of people inside specific clusters and interests, such as those loving concerts, events, arts, festivals, etc.
The campaign used a wide range of channels to promote awareness, with abundant high-frequency content in a short period of time, advertising the headlining shows and cultivating a sense of urgency for the event.
Amstel adopted an integrated strategy, leveraging digital opportunities and focusing on social media and Google search. Amstel also leveraged platforms that included Instagram and TikTok.
As a result of Amstel's effort:
