Consumers overwhelmed by the summer chore of lugging heavy beer coolers may be able to put that struggle behind them on July 1 when Heineken gives away a robotic, AI-supported ice chest that ensures ice-cold brews are always nearby.
The Heineken B.O.T.—a clever acronym for the more clunky “Beer Outdoor Transporter”—is essentially an autonomous voice-activated cooler on wheels, holding 12 cans of lager and going everywhere you do. (Well, almost everywhere; a promotional video for the contraption shows that it’s smart enough to not fall into a pool.)
The B.O.T's launch is a complement to a larger digital campaign Heineken is running in the U.S. starting this week, aimed at younger consumers of legal drinking age and encouraging them to embrace this mostly back-to-normal summer as an opportunity to make up for 2020’s summer that wasn’t.
“It’s really about the transition from last summer being the ‘summer of can’t’—can’t go to bars, can’t go to movies, can’t go to concerts—to this year being the ‘Summer of Can,’” says Heineken USA brand director Josh Egan, playing on the emphasis on aluminum cans versus glass bottles in the campaign. “Obviously, you can’t bring bottles of beer and glass to a lot of summer occasions.”