Heineken - The Entrance
A couple weeks ago a few of my friends and I were sitting around at my house watching YouTube videos and talking about new music we’d found. Eventually my friend Michael grabs the computer and says, “Oh you’ve got to check out this band The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – I heard them on some dumb Heineken commercial but they’re really good!” I think this anecdote pretty much sums up the way this ad works. The music is what makes it so lasting, without a doubt, because it’s so catchy and distinctive. In fact, almost all of the comments on YouTube about this video consist of “Great song, what’s it called?” rather than “I love Heineken! What a cool guy!”
The main character is a cool guy though, so I want to shift the focus on to him for a little while. When I first saw this I was reminded of Dos Equis’ The Most Interesting Man in the World campaign (this one is the best), which is a brand I don’t care for very much. Their whole concept for this guy was, obviously, based on the Chuck Norris meme, which is another thing I’m not a huge fan of. Sometimes the one-liners coming out of these two viral trends (is that the right phrase?) are pretty solid, but many turn stale quickly. It’s as if the people Dos Equis is marketing to are supposed to see themselves in the Most Interesting Man. This is a weird strategy, though, because the humor of that campaign lies in the improbability of this man. Both him and Chuck Norris are just fictional characters about which countless jokes can be made. Yet somehow there are still hundreds of people who absolutely love the Most Interesting Man campaign and see it as a cool thing rather than a comic thing. Maybe I’m getting this all wrong, but I do think that the Dos Equis campaign is based around how ridiculous these commercials are, not necessarily how cool the man is.
The Heineken guy in this commercial is another story. He’s relatable, because everyone knows how it is to walk into a party and greet a million people before you grab your first beer. Yet relating to him makes you feel like you are the type of person who attends parties like the one he’s at, which is a good feeling for any consumer. He gives the impression of being liked by everyone – handing the eye-patch guy his eyeball back, feigning battles with two false enemies, playing with the band. The whole commercial just feels like a lot of swanky fun. It seems like a story Esquire would tell, except for the fact that this particular scenario does contain a few clichés. Plus, the song is great. No dialogue is necessary because the song and the characters tell their own story, and it’s a story anyone would want to be a part of.
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