-By Della de Lafuente

NEW YORK Heineken USA has hired Omnicom's Hispanic shop Dieste Harmel & Partners and WPP's activation agency G2 to handle the beer importer's promotional marketing duties for its Dutch and Mexican brands, following a review.

Heineken USA's Dutch brands include Heineken, Heineken Premium Light, Amstel Light and Buckler; and Mexican brands: Tecate, Tecate Light, Dos Equis, Bohemia, Ambar, Sol and Carta Blanca.

Dieste will focus its immediate efforts on the Tecate brand, working the brand group and field-marketing clients to ensure that the brand advertising developed by lead agency Adrenalina, New York, connects seamlessly with consumers on the retail level.

Heineken's lead Hispanic agency is Vidal Partnership, New York.

"We will partner with Adrenalina and Vidal and coordinate with the client to make sure that the same voice is maintained from brand to retail -- while at the same time expanding that voice," said Aldo Quevedo, president and chief creative officer, Dieste, Dallas.

Quevedo's team also will hit the ground running on Tecate Light, which launched its first significant multiplatform push in English this week.

Dieste's new partner, G2 Worldwide, currently works on behalf of the Heineken brand in a number of markets around the world and now assumes responsibility for the English-language general market promotional programs supporting Heineken USA's Dutch and Mexican product portfolios, per the beer importer.

"G2 will be executing the programs that we come up with, because they have the expertise and the experience is there," Dieste's Quevedo said. "Dieste is bringing the other components, which are the cultural insight and relevancy."

The assignments will vary with some programs created as bilingual, Spanish only or as English only, Quevedo said.

The appointment of Dieste and G2, effective July 1, comes as Heineken USA completes the consolidation of its retail marketing activities, which previously were handled jointly by the Ryan Partnership, The Vidal Partnership and Alcone Marketing Group, per Heineken.

"Heineken USA's evolution into a true portfolio organization over the past three years, coupled with an increasingly competitive and dynamic beverage alcohol industry, increases the importance of developing below the line partners and programming that effectively engage our consumers and add value to our wholesale and retailer partners," Steve Ward, vp, strategy and channel activation, sales for Heineken USA, said in a statement. He also thanked the incumbent agencies.

The win comes at a pivotal time for Dieste, which earlier this year repositioned and widened the agency's focus beyond creative to showcase and market its promotional, direct response and digital capabilities.

"This win makes us think that we're doing something right in the areas that Dieste wasn't known for in the past," Quevedo said. "Now, it's beginning to pay off and it feels and tastes very well."

Heineken USA's overall domestic ad spend in all media totaled $125 million in 2007 with global ad spending estimated at nearly $300 million for last year, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

The review was managed by Pile and Co., Boston.

Heineken USA is based in White Plains, N.Y.