Billion Dollar Boy has won four Lions at the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity awards, in recognition for its work on The Virtual Heineken Silver campaign. The Heineken campaign won a total of four Lions across Digital Craft, Brand Experience & Activation, and Social & Influence categories. This includes Silver for the Excellence in Social & Influencer category, which celebrates creative social thinking and strategic influencer marketing solutions. 

The campaign also earned four shortlists in the PR, Media, Direct, and Data & Technology categories. 

It was a huge team effort across multiple agencies including Publicis Italy, Dentsu, Edelman, Boomerang and Amplify.

The Virtual Heineken Silver

To demonstrate that the virtual world isn’t always better than the real one, Heineken ironically jumped on the metaverse ‘trend’ by launching the world’s first virtual beer. The launch – to which real influencers were invited to virtually taste the beer – took place in Decentraland. The idea poked fun at the brand and many others that are jumping into the metaverse with products that are best enjoyed in the real world.

Then a month later the real Silver launched via a series of Metabar parties, where the people could finally taste Heinken Silver, for real. Launch attendees were treated to a full-on metaverse experience, as the pop-up bar was inspired by the virtual world. Staying true to its metaverse origins, The Heineken Silver IRL Meta-bar had blocky, pixelated appearance. Attendees were given low-tech ‘virtual reality’ headsets to wear and staff acted like non-playable characters (NPCs). As reward for spending time in the bar that comes with a no beer guarantee, all visitors gained access to a very special and extra fresh experience next door celebrating real moments over a beer.

The campaign travelled across 30+ markets. It was the most successful Heineken launch in history. Check out the launch of the campaign here.

Edward East, Billion Dollar Boy Group CEO and co-founder said: “I could not be prouder of the team for winning our first ever awards at Cannes Lions, it is an incredible achievement. These awards recognise the increased relevance of creator marketing, the strength of our creative, strategy and account management teams, and our ability to deliver effective creator marketing at scale across multiple territories.”

For more information about the campaign and to find out about our services, get in touch via [email protected]

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