W Revealing Heineken's latest secret - Cracked Marketing Google tag (gtag.js)

Revealing Heineken’s latest secret

Tailored research to drive an insights-led product launch.

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 is going from strength to strength. It’s even rolled out for other lagers in the Heineken family! 

Client

Heineken

Services

Strategy //Research 

Skills

Marketing strategy and consultancy //Bespoke research  

Want to hone your strategy with a bespoke research project?    

Get in touch

In a very strategically important innovation launch for a global brewer, Cracked was able to challenge, test, validate and build on some of the assumptions we’d made. Cracked’s commercial catering expertise, plus its research, gave us really valuable insight that addressed all parts of the launch strategy.

Ross Mair, Customer Marketing Manager, Heineken UK

You may also like

‘Happy days’ with Harvest Home® cereal

Content // Creative // Strategy

View project

Championing the coffee break with NESCAFÉ

Content // Creative // Strategy

View project