Dive Transient:
- Heineken teamed up with streetwear retailer Bodega to launch The Boring Telephone, a limited-edition “dumb cellphone” with no web entry, in response to data shared with Advertising Dive. The main target of the discharge and a associated marketing campaign is to encourage customers to cut back their display time whereas supporting human connection.
- The cellphone made its first look right now (April 18) at Milan Design Week. For many who can not get their fingers on considered one of 5,000 Boring Telephones being launched, an app will launch in June that may restrict the performance of any cellphone to sending and receiving calls and textual content messages.
- The cellphone, which has a clear case with wiring evocative of Heineken’s signature colours, was impressed by knowledge reflecting the challenges younger adults face unplugging from smartphones. A Heineken-sponsored survey discovered that 90% of U.Ok. and U.S. Gen Z and millennials “doom scroll” whereas socializing.
Dive Perception:
Heineken is leaning right into a theme of connectivity in a brand new collaboration with Bodega. “The Boring Telephone” is meant to encourage customers to unplug and join in a manner that’s each trendy and nostalgic. The cellphone has one week of standby time and 20 hours of discuss time, in response to the discharge. Will probably be handed to out to “revellers” all over the world.
The supporting marketing campaign contains a number of 15-second commercials exhibiting people ditching their smartphones in favor of dwelling within the second, corresponding to having fun with a live performance or spontaneously getting into a bar and interesting with others over bottles of Heineken. The spots boast what The Boring Telephone is missing, corresponding to maps and social media.
The marketing campaign was impressed from insights of a brand-commissioned survey of 4,000 Gen Z and millennial smartphone customers, with outcomes exhibiting that these customers test their cellphone a median of seven instances when out and 62% test social media when with others. Moreover, 36% admitted to checking work emails whereas 30% mentioned they sneakily enjoying video games. Nevertheless, the survey additionally revealed these customers want to interrupt away from such habits, with 37% believing they test their telephones extra typically than they need to whereas out and 32% mentioned they want to have the ability to swap off from their telephones throughout an evening out. Relating to turning their cellphone off or leaving it at house whereas out, 22% indicated they already achieve this and 38% mentioned they’d take into account doing so.
The marketing campaign was created in partnership with LePub, which is a part of Publicis Groupe. Extra help comes from PR company The Romans and media company Dentsu Redstar. Human Cell Units produced the telephones.
The marketing campaign embraces rising nostalgia for Y2K, a time earlier than smartphones performed such a giant position in customers’ lives, whereas additionally selling key Heineken ideas of unplugging and dwelling within the second. This isn’t the beer model’s first foray into anti-tech expertise: In 2022, the beer launched a bottle opener that shut down work apps.