Decent Beer, Brilliant Message

Heineken is the beer my Dad considered that ‘something special’ beer as I was growing up. I love beer and consider Heineken a decent enough pint that I would likely not choose to drink, given the usual options. But the message in the new Heineken #OpenYourWorld campaign is BRILLIANT.

Rather than an ad filled with unrealistically beautiful young people suggesting that drinking Heineken is the secret to success…the company chose to teach us something important. Does this mean that some, like myself here, will then amplify the value of their ad spend by circulating their ad at no additional cost to the company? Yes. Happily.

The ad is a bit over 4 minutes. The experiment brings together folks who disagree and do not know each other (and do not know they disagree). They start by asking each other two simple questions.

Describe yourself in 5 adjectives.

Name three things you and I have in common.

While doing this they assemble stools and a simple bar together. They pull two cold Heinekens from a cooler and put them on the bar.

Then, they are asked to stand and watch two short videos. The videos are the two of them articulating two strongly opposing political views on climate change, feminism, and transgender rights.

Then, a loudspeaker gives them a choice: you can walk away or stay and talk out your differences over a beer. They stay, talk over a beer, and leave friends.

At the end of the Upworthy article linked to here the author notes that the message is not fiction…

“…A number of studies have shown that short, casual, in-person conversations with someone with an opposing viewpoint is one of the easiest paths to changing someone's mind.”

Here is the full ad

Here some info on the study linked to above:

“…A new study in Science, though, provides evidence for a promising approach.

…Part of the reason Broockman and Kalla were able to discover the irregularities that toppled [and earlier, falsified] paper was because they were looking to run a canvassing study of their own, in Miami. Their resulting paper has just been published in Science, and it shows that canvassing has some serious potential to nudge people… [toward changing their mind].

…one of the most important things about this paper is that it will help cement the norm that attempts to persuade people on civil-rights issues should be measured rigorously and independently. Gut isn’t enough.

The field of political persuasion, after all, has its own entrenched incumbents — that is, the consultants who bring home hefty paychecks without really proving what they’re doing works — and maybe it’s time they faced a stiff challenge.”