#Boycottheineken trends after brewer celebrates vaccines
Heineken ran a minute-long ad on social media on Thursday showing senior citizens dancing in a nightclub and racing to take a dip at a nearby beach. It ended with the message, “The night belongs to the vaccinated. Time to join them.”
By Friday, bands of aggrieved users on Twitter were threatening to #Boycottheineken.
Some uploaded videos of themselves opening bottles of the brewer’s namesake lager and pouring it down their kitchen sinks in protest. Others described the ad as provaccination propaganda.
The ad is “all about supporting the hospitality industry and getting back to the bars and restaurants safely so we can all be together again,” a Heineken spokesman said. Last year, Heineken, which has a sizeable pub estate in the
UK, offered vouchers during lockdowns that drinkers could redeem for pints when bars reopened.
The world’s second-largest beermaker joins companies implementing ad campaigns and corporate policies to promote inoculation. Top executives are increasingly positioning themselves at the forefront of fighting anti-vaccine sentiment, which is marked in countries, such as the US, France and Russia. It also poses a singular risk to the business models of brands built on social interaction in bars, restaurants and nightclubs.
Budweiser beer, owned by Anheuser-busch, decided not to run a commercial during the Super Bowl in February for the first time in 40 years and allocated that spending to the Ad Council’s pro-vaccination campaigns. Immunisations will “liberate people,” EX-CEO Carlos Brito said at the time.