See Heineken's 150th birthday video

“I don’t sell beer, I sell gezelligheid,” Heineken’s longtime CEO Freddy Heineken liked to say. Gezelligheid is a Dutch phrase meaning “the feeling of good times,” which is how the beer brand is celebrating its 150th birthday. A new global campaign highlights that Heineken is often misspelled, mispronounced, and arguably misused (served with a straw or over ice) but it doesn’t matter as long as there’s gezelligheid. Cannes Lions coverage Follow our live blog here Sign up here for email updates See all of the Grand Prix winners here A 90-second video, developed by the brand’s Publicis-led advertising agency Le Pub, takes viewers around the globe to showcase social moments with Heineken, especially those done unexpectedly. Set to Plastic Bertrand’s zany “Ca Plane Pour Moi,” the ad whips from a misspelled Heineken tattoo, to an appearance by Formula One driver Mika Häkkinen, whose surname is among the many featured mispronunciations, to beer served with limes, and so on. As part of the campaign Heineken is rebranding its social media accounts and website pages using common spelling mistakes and colloquial nicknames to remind people it’s not the spelling, but the experience that matters. The brand is also determined to live up to its gezelligheid: It has partnered with Chris Brauer of the University of London to construct a new brand tracking metric known as the Good Times Index, which Heineken said allows it to become the first beer brand to have “delivering good times” as part of the way it measures its annual performance. Subscribe to Ad Age Sign up now for the latest industry news and analysis Click here

See Heineken's 150th birthday video

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