Heineken knows people like beer better than AI

When AI wearable company Friend blanketed New York City with ads last month, there was significant backlash. Many of the company’s ads (which included rage-baiting copy like, “I’ll never bail on our dinner plans”) ended up defaced with graffiti that called the product “AI trash,” “surveillance capitalism,” and a tool to “profit off of loneliness.”

Despite the campaign running in New York, it struck a national nerve as it became a lightening rod for people’s feelings around AI. It was only a matter of time before the brands got in on the debate.

A couple weeks after the campaign’s debut, beer giant Heineken joined the chat, posting on Instagram: “The best way to make a friend is over a beer.” It touted its own social wearable—a bottle opener—that bears a striking resemblance to the AI-powered Friend necklace. 

Now, the brand has turned that into a new outdoor ad campaign around New York, adding that the brand has been “social networking since 1873.” Created with agency Le Pub New York, it is a silly poke at the NYC-centric zeitgeist for Heineken. But it’s also the latest in a consistent string of work by the brand over the years that has aimed to remind people to put down their phones and log off social media in favor of IRL social interaction. 

The new ads feature the hashtag #SocialOffSocials, harking back to the “Social Off Socials” campaign the brand launched in April. Built around the premise that adults spend too much time online, but also feel trapped in a vicious cycle of social media addiction, it starred Joe Jonas, Dude with Sign, Lil Cherry, and Paul Olima.

For that campaign, Heineken commissioned a study of 17,000 adults in the U.S., U.K., and seven other international markets and found that more than half of adults feel overwhelmed keeping up-to-date with social media. And nearly two-thirds say they are nostalgic for the 1990s when there were no smartphones.

More social, less social media

Earlier this year in South Africa, the brand created an installation in a mall so that people watching soccer on their phones alone could actually combine  their screens to make one giant, collective viewing experience. 

The brand also created a limited edition phone case called The Flipper, that would flip your phone over to screen down when it heard the word, “Cheers.” 

Meanwhile, last year’s “The Boring Phone” tapped into the dumb phone trend among Gen Z. Created with streetwear retail brand Bodega, Heineken made 5,000 Boring Phones to give away. But the message is very much the same: It’s time to ditch the phone for a real social life.

I reached out to both Heineken and Le Pub for comment, and to find out if the Friend-like bottle openers will be available to the public. This story will be updated as soon as I hear back. 

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