Back in October 2020, Heineken announced it was partnering with Arizona Beverages—purveyors of the popular tall cans of iced tea—to formulate a new hard seltzer. The first campaign for Arizona Sunrise hard seltzer is here and, with the success Arizona has seen on social media, the brands are turning to Instagram micro-influencers, rather than actors or models, to stand out in the competitive hard seltzer category.

The campaign, called “#ForTheReal,” emphasizes that the drink uses real fruit—a way to differentiate the product from others on the market. It comes in grapefruit, lemon, cheery punch and mucho mango with an alcoholic strength of 4.6% in 12-ounce and 19.2-ounce cans—the same size as Arizona’s Iced Tea. 

A colorful 30-second spot starts with a voiceover saying, “Here’s to the real ones. Those that don’t follow trends, but set the stage.” Viewers then see the influencers —Alani Figueroa, Alissia Benveniste Schuler-Voith, Champagne Dubois, Chimemeka Ugoji, Eunice Chang, Gilly Moya and Mikey February—immersed in their diverse elements (dancer, painter, guitarist, skateboarder, surfer and more) set against vivid colors and hints of Arizona Ice Tea’s flowery checker and Southwestern designs. The design of the hard seltzer cans is similar to Arizona Iced Tea, but with a giant golden sun rising from red mountains. 

The influencers have fewer than 500,000 followers on Instagram—most fewer than 100,000—but have high engagement and authenticity. Karla Flores, director of innovation commercialization at Heineken USA, says the brand partnered with them because they are “unapologetically themselves.”

“The popularity of hard seltzers continues to grow which made it important for Arizona Sunrise to stand out as a new brand on the scene,” says Flores. “We wanted to provide a product that didn’t already exist on shelves, which is why it was important to us to build a campaign that was all about being real since we have that splash of real fruit.”

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The campaign is being shared across paid social and the influencers are also sharing their reactions to trying Arizona Sunrise in their own posts. The 30-second spot will be shown across connected TV platforms and featured in a pause ad on Hulu where consumers are driven to an e-commerce platform based on their region to purchase Arizona Sunrise. The hard seltzer will also be given out at more than 2,500 events over the summer.

Heineken partnered with Los Angeles-based Cashmere, one of Ad Age’s 2021 A-List Standout Agencies, on the campaign. Heineken did not reveal the ad spend behind the effort.  

It’s not surprising that Arizona and Heineken would tap influencers. Arizona could have easily evolved into an artifact of the 90s—when the 99-cent iced teas became a staple of every corner store and bodega—going the same way as High-C or Surge. Instead, the brand has managed to stay hip, largely thanks to the rise of social media and users’ embrace of its cans' designs. Arizona, which has 313,000 followers on Instagram, has leaned into its designs with brand merchandise partnerships with Adidas, Slunks and Aztec, its own merchandise and by sharing user-generated content such as nail designs and bedazzled cans.

Alcohol brands running an influencer campaign on Instagram have to follow certain regulations. Unlike on TikTok, where branded content with alcohol brands is expressly prohibited, the alcohol category is only restricted on Instagram. This means that brands can run campaigns as long as they are age-gated—ensuring that paid content is seen only by Instagram users older than 21.

Heineken uses Instagram analytics and third-party software to make sure that 71.6% of an influencer's following is over the age of 21. The threshold comes from the last U.S. Census, which found that 71.6% of the population is over 21, and is a rule set by the national trade association Beer Institute, of which Heineken is a member.

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