Spirits are high at search engine giant Google. “On Thursday, brewer Heineken confirmed it had signed a multi-million Euro advertising contract with Google, becoming the first major brand to strike a global deal with the search engine,” reported Wall Street Journal.
Heineken spokesman John Paul Schuirink said, “The deal with Google will mainly focus on distributing our
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commercials on YouTube, in order to reach our target groups of 20-somethings, but will also include promotions such as banners on Google.”
Refusing to put an exact price on the agreement with Google, Schuirink said that the agreement spans 20 countries ranging from Western Europe to the US as well as emerging markets like Mexico. There is no end-date to the agreement and the brewer will distribute both global campaigns and local commercials via Google’s channels.
Heineken’s products will not only get a wide coverage but will also get access to the customer data from Google. “This will include information on what the preference of our viewers are, where they shop, or what other words they search for on Google. This will help us target our customers better, “ said Schuirink.
Alexis Nasard, Heineken’s chief commercial officer told The Financial Times while attending the Cannes Lions Festival last week, “Google knows their media better than anyone else and have access to an immense source of information. I don’t think any traditional advertising agency will know about Google’s business as well as Google knows about its business. The expertise they bring is unique,”
Brand Republic posted, “Henrique de Castro, Google’s vice-president of global media platforms, explained how the search firm would work with Heineken on providing incremental reach on target audiences and compare these across media types. He said he expected other brands to forge similar partnerships with Google.”
In a separate collaboration, earlier this month, Heineken and digest national paper i teamed up to launch a hybrid app that gives readers the opportunity to read the paper’s content in selected pubs and bars in London and Cardiff.
Interestingly, the beer maker is also engaged in talks with companies like Facebook for forging similar deals.
Heineken spends 4% of its approximately Euro 2 billion annual advertising budget on on-line marketing, but Schuirink said this will grow further in the years to come.