Touchpoints & brands universe

"Branding gurus today urge companies to forge all-encompassing brand identities so that consumers experience the magic of the brand at every corporate touchpoint" 

Why Do Brand Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture Branding, Douglas B. Holt 

Thus, building the consumer experience around brand touchpoints creates a brand-focused customer relationship. Actually every touchpoint is important, as it is associated in consumers’ mind with the brand identity, which contributes to the consumers’ experience of a brand.

Heineken and 1664 try to build a strong distinctive universe for their brand trough different touch points like packaging, channel, service, advertising, website…

Both of them want to be perceived as a premium beer in the French market but they have designed their own universe by creating their branding strategies on their own values. They offer different beer experience to the consumers.

Innovation and design, freshness, modernity and universality characterize Heineken, which highlights its brand strategy more on the design of the product than the taste. Actually, the shape of the Heineken green bottle with its red star is easily recognizable by everyone.

1664 wants to be perceived as more elegant, authentic and traditional, to be a beer more reserved to connoisseurs. The brand has based its image on tradition and the authenticity of the product labelling it as “made in France”, and highlights its strategy more on the taste of the product.

Today, Heineken is perceived as trendy and very dynamic, whereas 1664 is considered as elegant and traditional. And to match their promises to their consumers, both of them have adapted their strategy to their different touchpoints.

First, the packaging can be considered as the first touchpoint with their consumer. The two brands have designed their packaging, which are adapted to their values.

The brand 1664 has made a partnership with the famous fashion designer Christian Lacroix, who has imagined six unpublished visuals for the 1664 cans and the bottles’ packaging. Those visuals illustrate how the aperitif “à la française” is elegant and sophisticated.

Heineken has a partnership with the designer Ora-ito since 2002, who has created a new bottle design especially for nightclubs. In 2002 he won the “Oscar for the best packaging” for his aluminium Heineken bottle. He has imagined a premium and minimalist design for new aluminium packaging collections in limited editions: “Pacco”,   ‘I-pure”, “Ikonik”, “Night Instant” (a packaging which in dark night), “Green Line” and “Pure Edition”. This partnership has benn a turning point for Heineken who asserts its interest in design.

Since September 2012, the music band Metronomy has teamed up with Heineken on a special version of the brand’s aluminium beer bottle. Again, the brand promotes its festive and trendy image.

The Metronomy collection is exclusively released at the concept store Colette in Paris, where you can buy the bottle alone or you can purchase a special collector’s box. Thus, Heineken adapts its branding strategy to its distribution strategy. Being exclusively available in a concept store show how much Heineken wants to consolidate its brand image to be perceived as trendy and even a bit selective. During four years, Heineken had its own beer concept store “Culture bière” in the Champs Elysées, which was a real showcase for the brand. Even if Heineken is obviously available in all   supermarkets and hypermarkets, when new collections in limited edition are launched, they are only available in city markets like Monoprix, Monop’ or Daily Monop, which are only in big cities and mainly in Paris. Those choices  (including the limited editions for nightclubs) allow the brand to reach better their urban and trendy target.

1664 has also adapted its distribution strategy for the coherence of the brand image. For example, the Christian Lacroix collection is available in supermarkets and hypermarkets but the special collector’s box is exclusively distributed in city markets like Monoprix to reach active and urban consumers. Obviously the brand does not aim to be perceived as trendy as Heineken is.

The print advertisements of the two brands also convey their values, especially 1664 which current campaign is a declination of landscapes from typical French regions. This campaign fits very well with their motto “Le goût à la française”. The last Heineken campaign still keeps its traditional green tone to keep its strong visual identity, and also its humour. The motto “Open your world” is consistent with its global strategy: being the universal reference beer brand.

The brands offer the same consumer experience whatever the touchpoint is. For instance, their Facebook pages provide consistent contents. Heineken posts a lot of information about its partnership with Metronomy and cocktail recipes to convey with its trendy and festive brand image.1664 promotes a region every week and recipes (using beer as an ingredient) from the Chef Thomas Clouet to strengthen the authenticity and the elegance of the brand image.

Both of the brands have built a very recognizable image and universe, but Heineken has definitely a stronger identity since the brand is working on the same perceived values for a long time. Over the years its brand image has evolved but it is still the same.