One of Europe’s biggest drinks brands, Heineken, had a new, top-secret concept – a tabletop draught lager solution. A clever option so businesses normally unable to sell alcohol on tap could easily serve up a premium, draught lager experience with Heineken.

Think restaurants, cafés, and even garden centres and barbers. Now that’s a next-level haircut!

Refreshing insights  

To get real insight into how this latest concept would launch (and land) in the UK hospitality marketplace, the brand needed invaluable – but confidential – customer input. 

With our track record in hospitality and catering, Heineken trusted us to test its commercial plan against the views of its potential customer base.

For us, it was all about gathering detailed insights. With all the depth and layers of a pint of the good stuff itself. So, we set our sights on interviewing a small sample group of target businesses. 

By doing our research and digging deep into our network, we identified 15 influential potential customers to interview, who represented multiple customer types and functions. 

A highly targeted approach 

We got stuck in with face-to-face and telephone interviews.

They were shown a product video and quizzed on how they’d expect the new concept to be delivered to market, including the commercial model, maintenance and support framework, point-of-sale and marketing support, and route-to-market delivery. So we knew exactly what they’d expect – and need.

The result? Top-secret discussions with the decision-makers Heineken needed to hear from. In-depth findings and recommendations for the client to tuck into. And vital commercial insights so the team could finalise, launch and finally share the secret…

After a successful launch, the concept went from strength to strength. It was even rolled out for other lagers in the Heineken family!