Research Insight

Ad In Review ‘Heineken – Back to the Bars’

A critical review of Heineken's 'Back to the Bars' ad, examining its effectiveness and messaging.

March 27, 2023
10 min
White Smiley icon

As part of its initiative, #SocialiseResponsibly, Heineken aims to encourage responsible participation from people in the HoReCa across the globe. Crafted by the award-winning creative agency Publicis Italy, the ad shows bars brimming with people, who are socializing through elbow bumps, air hugs, and nods.

With a long history of developing ad campaigns that urge people to act sensibly, this commercial ends with the message “there is one thing better than a night out. Another night out.”

heat map
Heat Map generated using Emotion AI

After the launch, Heineken’s social media platforms received a significant number of retweets, replies, comments, shares, reviews, and traction compared to their average interaction. However, in order to decipher the unstated feelings viewers underwent while watching an ad talk so candidly about the Coronavirus pandemic, Entropik used its proprietary Emotion AI platform – Affect Lab.

Graphs & Charts
Average score of Audience Attention & Emotion Distribution

Affect Lab deployed the emotion recognition technologies of facial coding and eye tracking to figure out what caught the viewer’s attention, how engaged audiences were to the ad film, and how long did they maintain continuous attention.

Here the emotions are defined via segments where positive includes happy and surprise and the intensity of the negative emotions illustrate sadness and anger.

Insights from the emotion recognition analysis showed that the Heineken – Back to the Bars advertisement garnered an average attention level of 47.59 on a scale of 0-100. Besides, the ad saw high negative emotions and low positive emotions with variations up to 27 points.

In a Nutshell

The Emotion AI-assisted insights suggest that in a time of crisis and sensitivity, advertisements hold power to steer a conversation for or against a brand. And despite delivering compelling, relatable, and humorous storytelling, certain elements can evoke negative emotions in the viewers.

Emotion-AI platforms such as Affect Lab can lend a hand to the companies in instances like these. Testing their creatives before launch enables marketers to discover the right messaging suitable for various segments of their target market.


{{cat-button}}

Author Bio

Get your Product Pack Design tested against competitors

Got a question?
Check out our FAQ’s

Book a Demo

First name*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Last name*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Please use your business email address
Business Email*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Phone number*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Job title*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Company name*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Country*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Demo Preference*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Country*
  • This is some text inside of a div block.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Book a Demo

Thank You!

We will contact you soon.