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The average adult spends five hours and 48 minutes each day looking at their phones. Heineken thinks that’s way too much time and has launched a new campaign encouraging people to put their devices down and socialize more in person.
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Ideally, with a beer of course.
With consumers spending 88 days per year scrolling on their phones, the Dutch brewer this week is kicking off a “Social Off Socials” marketing blitz that’s built around the premise that adults acknowledge they spend too much time online, but also feel trapped in a vicious cycle of social media addiction.
Heineken commissioned a study of 17,000 adults of legal drinking in the U.S., U.K., and seven other international markets and found that more than half of adults feel overwhelmed keeping up-to-date with social media. Nearly two-thirds say they are nostalgic for the 1990s when there were no smartphones.
“Social Off Socials” will include a TV ad spot—which counterintuitively, also appears on social media—and stars singer Joe Jonas and influencers including Dude with Sign, Lil Cherry, and Paul Olima.
The spot depicts empty highways with abandoned cars, quiet streets, and influencers who are freaking out because they aren’t getting any views or likes from their content. “Where is everybody,” Jonas screams. It turns out they are all at the bar, sans phones and having a great time.
“Championing social life is at the core of what we do,” says Nabil Nasser, global head of the Heineken brand, during an interview with Fast Company. “And addressing the barriers to social life, the enemies of social life, is at the core of this campaign.”
One of those enemies, which Heineken has been confronting for some time, is excessive use of the phone that’s driven by doom scrolling on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media channels. Too much reliance on technology is a theme that also appeared in Heineken’s “The Boring Phone” and “Forgotten Beers” ad campaigns last year.
“Boring Phone,” in particular, leaned on the insight that some consumers—in particular those from the Gen Z cohort—were eschewing the smartphones and instead buying flip phones to help curb their online addiction. Heineken’s “Boring Mode” mobile app blocked notifications, the functions of the camera, and other apps for a set period of time to help users unplug.
Gen Z needs to hear this
Heineken’s survey found that Gen Z is even more addicted to their phones than older generations, with daily usage rising to six-and-a-half hours for that demographic. One in 10 spend over 12 hours each day looking at their phone screens. Gen Zers are also more likely to say they feel drained by the amount of time they spend speaking to other people online.