Name: Maria Abolfathi

Social Media Marketing Audit

(aka Case Study)
Name of Company: Heineken
Title of Campaign: Heineken Crack the US Open 2013
Description of Products/Services: Heineken, established in 1864, is the maker of a
premium beer which is available in 192 countries worldwide.
Briefly explain the marketing challenges or objectives that this company faced
before implementing their social media strategy.
Pattie Falch, Heinekens brand director of sponsorships and events marketing,
describes Heinekens campaign objective: "to drive awareness of Heinekens US
Open sponsorship by engaging tennis fans in the digital space in a way that was
innovative but convenient to our fans.
Who was/are the target market(s) of this campaign?
Heinekens target market for this campaign was fans of the US Open Tennis
tournament who use Instagram and who are over 21 years old.
What was the key message the campaign was designed to communicate?
The Crack the US Open campaign was designed to engage fans of the US Open and
to build brand presence amongst them. Heinekens key message was really a public
relations move promoting the fact that it shares a passion with fans about the US
Open to the degree that it has sponsored the tournament for over 22 years.
Describe the campaign or social media marketing strategy the company executed.
The Crack the US Open Campaign involved using Instagram to play a virtual
treasure hunt where the winner was awarded twin seats to the US Open Men's Finals
the following week. The campaign was a great success and elicited participation
similar to the excitement and engagement described in the famous book, Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory, where kids frantically scrambled to English candy stores
in search of golden tickets. Both in the Heineken campaign, and in the famous book,
5 winners were each awarded a fabulous prize and a visit into a world otherwise
inaccessible to them. In both instances, winning wasnt everything and the game
itself was exciting and in most cases fun! Unlike with Willie Wonka however,
Heinekens target market was not children, but adults of legal drinking age.
Developed by the advertising agency Weiden & Kennedy New York, Heinekens
Crack the US Open Campaign Instagram interactive game was innovative not only

in the way it engaged fans of the US Open Tennis tournament, but also in the way it
used Instagram to display photography and to create an interactive game out of it.
A resounding success, the campaign adhered to Lymanpr.coms rule of three providing content that was timely, relevant and compelling. It perfectly targeted its
audience of competitive sports fans, owning a mobile device, preferring to use
Instagram to share sports photos, and desiring tickets to the US Open without
having the budget to absorb the $2,000 per ticket price. Heineken gambled that the
time it took to complete the virtual challenge was worth two seats to the top event
which is a treat even amongst the 1% of the 1% who attend. That wager paid off
and Heinekens Instagram site experienced a 20% bump in engagement during the
contest period.
The Crack the US Open campaign built on the success of earlier social media
campaigns developed for Heineken, one featuring its sponsorship of the Ultra Music
Festival. Earlier it used a location-based movie app in its sponsorship of the UEFA
Champions League soccer tournament. The brand has been encouraging
spontaneity and adventure in its messaging through Wieden for a while now
(creativity-online.com). However, the level of ingenuity and creativity used in the
US Open Campaign transcended what Heineken and others had done before
through social media technology. Ms. Falch describe the campaign: We focus(ed)
our social media and mobile efforts on providing access to our consumers in ways
that have never been done before.
Launched Tuesday, September 3, the Crack the US Open Instagram challenge was a
perfect fit for use with mobile devices. Players logged onto Heinekens @
heineken_us Instagram account or Heinekens Twitter account to receive the
winning code and the first clue: Remember the codeword #SHHH/". Players then
thumbed through the photos to find the answer to the clue, in this case a man
wearing a t-shirt that read Shhh. Upon this discovery, players would check the
photos caption to learn of the clue leading to the next photo. The game included
many false clues and curve balls. Ultimately, the player would enter the winning
code in the caption of the last photo in the game. The first person to win the round
was awarded the prized two tickets to the US Open Mens Finals taking place the
following week. Then the next round began, using a different set of clues.
The photos used on Instagram were a creative melding of art and technology.
Instagram allows users to upload square photos to its newsfeed view. Heineken
wished to utilize a giant planographic image. To meet both criteria, creative director
and industry leader in large-format photography, Art Streiber, was tasked with the
challenge. Together with a team of designers and photo editors, he staged a mock
stadium section which looked just like a section at the Billie Jean King Tennis
Center at Flushing Meadows - NYC where the US Open takes place. The indoor set
up allowed the crew to control the photo shoot lighting which included a 30 foot
scissor lift topped with bright lights meant to simulate the suns natural light.
Based on the art generated during the 5-hour photo shoot utilizing 87 actor/extras
in 1,000 different poses, many props, 435 changes of clothing, and 15 different
compositions, the Strieber team manufactured a giant panoramic tiled photo for use
on Instagram. The devil lay in the details. Uploading each photographed section to
Photoshop, editors first branded the photo with a bottom blue strip featuring the

Heineken logo in white, and later photo-edited in additional images. Then the
sections were digitally stitched together, and layered on the top of sections of stairs
so that the resulting panoramic photo featured sections of fans alternating with
smaller sections of stairs. Then, artists cut the giant image into square tile photos,
saving each individually, and compatible with the square photo format used in
Instagram. Finally, each of the 225 photos were individually loaded, sideways, into
Instagram. The resulting image was the largest ever Instagrammed.
To play the game, treasure seekers would view the @crack_the _us_open Instagram
site using the horizontal orientation of their mobile device. Upon photo clue
discovery, the player would then flip the device 90 degrees, scroll down and check
the captioned clue, then flip the device horizontally again and scroll once more. Five
quick-thumbed, quick-witted players each won two tickets to the world-class tennis
event and Heineken won the hearts of its new fans.
What went well? What did they do right?
Everything about this campaign was professional from the photography and
branding, to the concept and implementation of the game - and the outcome was
fantastic. The campaign did what it was designed to do, engage fans of the US Open
through Heinekens Instagram and Twitter accounts.
What went wrong? What could they have done better?
From what I have read, the entire campaign was smooth and professional; nothing
went wrong.
What were the results or outcome of the campaign? If it was an unsuccessful
campaign, what takeaways were gained from this experience (for you and/or the
company)?
The campaign was a giant success, bumping up Heinekens Instagram traffic by
20% during the 3-day campaign. A jubilant Heineken describes the campaign:
Instagram was the perfect platform for this because fans at events like the US
Open are using it to capture and share their experience with their friends in real
time."
Additional thoughts or comments: (Attach links to resources, campaign sites, videos,
etc. Supporting documents can be submitted as attachments in the Audit Dropbox
along with this file.)
This campaign is inspiring and can be mimicked on a smaller-scale by a creative
low-budget social media marketer with access to proper staging, and to photoediting tools, like Adobe Photoshop.
Sources:
http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/61712710773/heineken-helps-tennis-fanshunt-for-tickets-to-the
http://www.heineken.com/us/Our-Beer

http://www.adverblog.com/2013/09/04/heineken-crack-the-us-open/
http://digiday.com/brands/heineken-instagram-scavenger-hunt/
http://creativity-online.com/work/heineken-crack-the-us-open/32487
https://stocklandmartelblog.com/2013/09/12/art-streiber-shoots-innovativeinstagram-based-campaign-for-heineken-and-the-u-s-open-plus-behind-the-scenesphotos/
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/social-networks/16089.html
http://usta.usopen.org/US-Open/ticket_plans/
http://lymanpr.com/tag/content-marketing/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7tZYNKUFb4