Evaluating the Effectiveness of Heineken's Advertisement Campaign

The provided content is about the effectiveness of advertisements. The first part discusses how Levi's, an American brand, used social media platforms to promote voter registration and empower people to vote. It highlights the importance of using the internet for political campaigning. The second part critiques Heineken's advertisement titled 'Sometimes, Lighter Is Better', which was considered one of the bad advertisements in 2018. The critique evaluates whether the ad communicated its intended message, whether the approach was appropriate, and whether the effort invested justified the objectives of the campaign. The conclusion suggests that a new approach could be taken to make the advertisement more effective by changing the timeline and using a better tagline that appeals to calorie-conscious people.

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
REFLECTIVE FOLIO
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Table of Contents
Stage 1: Controversial advertising...................................................................................................3
Stage 2: Award Winning/nominated Ads from the below stated Four Categories and article
analysis............................................................................................................................................3
Stage 3a: A bad ad...........................................................................................................................8
Reference List..................................................................................................................................9
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Stage 1: Controversial advertising
The selected controversial ad campaign is the ad campaign of Gillette for its MeToo razors with
the tagline of “We Believe: the Best Men Can Be”
a) From the perspective of the brand, the objectives of such advertisement are to promote pro-
humanity and to demonstrate the idea that the character of men can step up to change conditions.
Moreover, one of the inherent objectives of this ad campaign was to support the MeToo
movement as well as promote a new type of positive masculinity (theguardian.com, 2019).
b) Intended audience of the ad
The intended audiences of this ad are men.
c) The way it became controversial (e.g was it coincidental or deliberate?)
By engaging itself with the MeToo movement, Gillette has replaced its old tagline saying "The
best a man can get" with "The best men can be" which dragged the company into controversy by
blaming it for promoting toxic masculinity. Gillette was accused of emasculating men through
this new ad campaign.
d) Effect of the controversy and its impact on the brand
The selected ad campaign of Gillette has created a huge controversy. Gillette has received praise
as well as abuse after launching this advertising campaign from worldwide (adage.com, 2019).
The sales volume of Gillette has not increased after launching this advertising campaign but it
has helped the company to stabilize its share position in the market. The brand becomes more
popular after this advertising campaign and its values became clearer to the audience but it did
not boost up the sales volume of this razor brand.
Stage 2: Award Winning/nominated Ads from the below stated Four Categories and article
analysis
a) Business-to-business
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Intel’s advertising campaign titled 'Intel Drone Light Show at The Olympics'
Analysis: The advertising campaign for Intel was focused on promoting its technological
innovation strengths and capabilities. With this advertising campaign, Intel has shown its
excellence in designing super light, high-tech drones that have steal the opening ceremony show
at the Winter Olympic. The advertising campaign has successfully executed and the marketing
objectives of Intel attached to this advertising campaign were fulfilled. With this Business-to-
business advertising Intel has communicated with the companies or individuals (specifically the
architects, contractors or engineers) around the world who needs to buy high-tech products like
drones products for their business use. Furthermore, with this advertising campaign, Intel has
communicated with educational institutions, hospitals, and government agencies that utilise
drones for conducting their operations.
Critique evaluation of an article: The article developed by Kavoura and Katsoni (2013) is
based on the role played by networks in tourism planning. Business-to-business advertising
campaigns use to promote both the travel and tourism companies and tourist destinations. It often
creates a win-win situation in promoting a destination. Visitors, business organisations and
residents those who are indirectly or directly associated with market destinations require to build
a dynamic relationship through co-operation and in doing so business organisations need launch
from the business-to-business advertising campaign. In this article, the authors have argued the
collaboration between private and public is required to consider at the time of creating networks
for tourism sector marketing. The organizations of national tourism can play a significant role in
developing these networks. Moreover, information technology and social media both use to play
a highly significant role in destination marketing. Appropriate incorporation of communication
and information technologies along with the adoption of e-commerce in the process of setting
strategies for marketing tourism destinations is able to strengthen alliances and networks
between the public and private sector which ultimately helps to implement tourism development
successfully (Kavoura and Katsoni, 2013).
b) Not-for-profit from a non-English speaking country
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The advertisement title ‘The Immunity Charm’ for securing child health and immortality
in Afghanistan
Analysis: The Ministry of Health of Afghanistan, McCann Health, and McCann Worldgroup
Partner have awarded by Cannes Lions award for their advertising campaign titled ‘The
Immunity Charm.' With four gold, one bronze, and four silvers Lions, this advertising campaign
has received the most awards ever at Lions Health (adweek.com, 2019). Afghan child found
wearing a bracelet with black beads with a belief that this will protect the child from every evil,
and they do not need immunisation as it is against their religious beliefs. Due to this false belief,
child mortality rate in Afghanistan stands uncontrollable. Furthermore, the Afghan children do
not get proper and timely vaccination not only for the false traditional and religious beliefs but
also for their mothers’ forgetfulness. For countering the traditional biases of Afghanistan against
immunisation, the Afghanistan Health Ministry has turned to another tradition and this resulted
in The Immunity Charm. This is a bracelet with coloured beads indicating specific vaccines to let
doctors know about the vaccines the child already taken and with every next vaccination doctors
add the corresponding bead to the bracelet as a reminder of the baby’s immunization. The
creative on children health protection thought without harming the traditional belief and ensuring
child immunisation has made this advertising campaign able to win the awards at Cannes.
Critique evaluation of article: In their article based on the best practices on charity sector
marketing, Blades et al. (2012) have said that preparing a marketing budget is always a tough
decision. Charity organisations are the organisations that run on government grants, public
charity, and fund for which these organisations have to concentrate on saving funds that it will
invest in charity purposes. Due to not having huge resources within, the charity marketers always
look outside their organisations for achieving their aims. The managers involve in charity
marketing use online space for promoting their charity organisation and for every charity events
and programs related to developing social wellbeing, and fundraising. The authors have argued
that feel bad messages sometimes resulted in good outcomes. A single advertising campaign for
charity often includes a number of calls to action and it seeks to educate, support and change
human behaviour on different aspects.
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c) Online Influencers
Nike’s advertisement on promoting Nike Court – A clothing line from Nike
In 2015, Nike, the world famous sports company has launched its advertising campaign for
launching a new line of clothing name Nike Court. This advertisement was launched by Nike for
celebrating its 20th anniversary and this advertisement became one of its most famous
advertisements in the history of marketing. The advertisement has featured André Agassi and
Pete Sampras cutting traffic of New York for playing a tennis match. Nike has used the power of
influencers from the tennis world for this advertisement campaign. Nike has managed
successfully to reunite some of the world’s most famous tennis players like Roger Federer, Maria
Sharapova, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams in their advertising campaign for Nike Court to
promote this clothing line (skedsocial.com, 2019).
Critique evaluation of article: In the article developed by Keller and Fay (2016) on the use of
influencers in marketing they said that online influencers use to play a huge role in influencing
consumers’ behavior and their purchase decisions. The authors have also said to focus on offline
conversations though it is an age of digital marketing as offline communication build consumer
relationship more strong than digital media platforms and the positive word-of-mouth helps
companies to increase their sales volume. The authors also said to start with people-centric
strategy, not with channel-centric because influencers are engaged in brand conversations like
the other consumers of a company, both offline and online. Online influencers create a long-
lasting positive impact on customers mind and they always found moved by the word-of-mouth
of the online influencers those who belong to sports, entertainment, politics, and other public
service providing fields. Online influencers are helpful for the marketers as they act as the hand-
raisers. They represent themselves as the consumers those who disproportionately use to call the
customer service-numbers, volunteer for promotion and marketing programs, or visit websites of
the brand they promote. They prefer to get engaged with the brands and tend to share their
findings and feelings about the brand. Due to this, marketers prioritise the use of online
influencers for promoting their brand.
d) Social campaigns to meet the political need
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Levi’s: #TimeToVote
Analysis: Levi's is the name of the oldest brand of denim and always surprises audiences by its
highly creative and social message bearing advertising campaigns. In 2018, Levi's has launched
its advertising campaign tiled TimeToVote and it made a lasting impact on the people of the
United States and leading up to the midterm elections in the United States. The brand powered
politically which is known for supporting leading right-wing social causes like climate change,
gun control, hit it out of the park with its new advertising campaign titled #TimeToVote. With
this advertisement, Levi's has promoted the registration of voters as well as voter turnout
amongst the followers of the brand from the United States. The brand kicked-off its advertising
campaign via a television advertisement that debuted the days before the deadline of voter
registration. The advertisement has aligned itself from the day one of its launch with the
American roots and as the Election Day came closer, the brand has started filling their feeds on
Twitter, Instagram and their stories with empowering messages from stars wearing the ‘Vote’ t-
shirts. The simple designed graphic t-shirt of Levi’s has acted as the catalyst for the foolproof
celeb-UGC and impactful creation of content.
Critique evaluation of article: From the article written by Vergeer et al. (2013), it is seen that
during the past decades that political actors have started adopting the Internet as a means of
influencing people to make their selection while voting. Political parties have also started using
the Internet for election campaigning though there is a huge debate on whether such e-
campaigning uses to replicate the pattern of offline campaigning or not. It also questions whether
such campaigns contribute to any kind of fundamental change in the democratic nature of a
country or not. The authors argued that the Internet becomes increasingly popular and an
important tool for the political candidates and parties to provide political information as well as
to stimulate political engagement. In general, social campaigns seem that a country’s politicians
and political parties see the advantages of communicative potential they offered through the
Internet. Here, it is mentionable that it is yet to see whether all types of new possibilities as
offered by a country’s politicians and political parties via Internet are able to result in some
productive or positive changes in the political involvement.
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Stage 3a: A bad ad
The advertisement published by Heineken with titled with "Sometimes, Lighter Is Better"
becomes one of the bad advertisements in the year 2018 (businessinsider.in, 2019).
Whether the ad communicated what it was supposed to communicate or not
With this ad, Heineken was supposed to communicate the feature of beer (features like, light and
lesser calories) its manufactures which it has communicated with its target audiences but it has
promoted racism.
Whether the approach appropriate or not
No, the approach of the advertisement of Heineken tiled with "Sometimes, Lighter Is Better" is
not appropriate for its target audience. The reason for which this advertisement was not
appropriate is that this advertisement came across over the social media as racism. It is not
appropriate for any company to discriminate its customers by considering their skin colour, race,
and creed which was done by Heineken by this advertisement and it's become very inappropriate
for the target customers of Heineken (adage.com, 2019).
Whether the approach was appropriate for the media environment from where the
advertisement is seen
No, the approach was not appropriate in terms of promoting a product for the environment of
media or media platform where it is published and visible.
Whether the effort Heineken has invested in undertaking the approach to justify the
objectives of the advertisement campaign
No, the effort Heineken has invested in its marketing approach is not justified for ensuring the
marketing objectives attached to the advertisement campaign. This is because, in any situation, a
company is not supposed to promote racism to create its commercials for increasing sales
volume.
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3 (b)
New approach to make it effective (‘good
The advertisement can be made better by re- changing the timeline and not including an
offensive or the lighter tagline, It would be best advised to use a better tagline which indicates,
how a low-calorie drink can be related for the calorie consciousness people. Instead of showing
how the white girl was wondering to look out for the drink and to consider having the drink or
not, as drinks are known to have haphazard calories and can lead to devastating results. The
advertisers could have thought to modify the advertisement, by making both the black women
and the white girl think about the low-calorie drink which could have supported the
advertisement cause (Kavoura, 2019). As the low-calorie drink is targeting the calorie
consciousness people, they should have considered more age groups and can be free from the
genders specifically. It could have made a free interracial advertisement that could have better
understood from the commercial purpose perspective.
Advertisement is an improved version and why it would be effective.
To approach the masses, an advertisement should be catchy, attractive and should have a better
tagline. Here the advertisement was dragged into the controversy, as it shows racial content and
also associated its brand with the white people. The advertisement should be better catchy and
related to good marketing content (Kavoura, 2019). The advertisement should have advocated in
a sense, for the calorie consciousness people and the irrespective gender and the color people are
reviewing the brand in a good spirit. The objective of showing the low-calorie consciousness
people was defeated as the advertisement was not well presented with the facts and the given
analysis. The advertisement should have been equally being focusing on all specific people and
the related conscious people, rather than the thin white women and should have come with a
better tagline that is not offensive to interpret.
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Reference List
AdAge.com. 2019. Blowback Over ‘We Believe’ Ad Suggests Gillette is No Nike. Viewed on 15th
March 2019 <https://adage.com/article/advertising/ad-blowback-suggests-gillette-nike/316308>
AdAge.com. 2019. How Did This happen? Behind Heineken Light’s ‘Lighter Is Better’ Ad
Mistake. Viewed on 15th March 2019 <https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/heineken-light-s-
lighter-ad-mistake/312887>
Adweek.com. 2019. Why This Simple Beaded Bracelet Won a Grand Prix for Good at Cannes.
Viewed on 15th March 2019 <https://www.adweek.com/creativity/why-this-simple-beaded-
bracelet-won-a-grand-prix-for-good-at-cannes/>
Antevenio.com. 2019. 5 examples of advertising campaigns with influencers. Viewed on 15th
March 2019 <https://www.antevenio.com/usa/5-examples-of-advertising-campaigns-with-
influencers/>
Blades, F., Macdonald, E.K. and Wilson, H., 2012. Best practice: charity marketing.
Business Insider. 2019. The worst ads of 2018. Viewed on 15th March 2019
<https://www.businessinsider.in/The-worst-ads-of-2018/Dolce-Gabbana-s-DGlovesChina-
Grade-F/slideshow/67257000.cms>
Kavoura, A. and Katsoni, V., 2013. From e-business to c-commerce: collaboration and network
creation for an e-marketing tourism strategy. Tourismos, 8(3), pp.113-128.
Keller, E. and Fay, B., 2016. How to use influencers to drive a word-of-mouth strategy. Warc
Best Practice, pp.1-8.
Skedsocial.com. 2019. Social Media 2018: The 8 Best Campaigns of the Year. Viewed on 15th
March 2019 <https://skedsocial.com/blog/8-best-social-media-campaigns-2018/>
The Guardian. 2019. Gillette #MeToo razors ad on 'toxic masculinity' gets praise – and abuse.
Viewed on 15th March 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/15/gillette-metoo-
ad-on-toxic-masculinity-cuts-deep-with-mens-rights-activists>
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Vergeer, M., Hermans, L. and Sams, S., 2013. Online social networks and micro-blogging in
political campaigning: The exploration of a new campaign tool and a new campaign style. Party
politics, 19(3), pp.477-501.
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