Hey Pepsi, Here's How It's Done. Heineken Takes On Our Differences, and Nails It

Putting realities over production values

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A feminist and a dude who feels awfully oppressed walk into a warehouse…

It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it’s actually the setup for Heineken’s “Worlds Apart” experiment. Created by Publicis London, it’s being billed as the antidote to Pepsi’s obtusely pop-candy take on our messy political reality.

Instead of positioning resistance as the new Coachella, Heineken takes a more measured approach. Ahead of the operation, it filmed six people stating strongly held beliefs—that men are oppressed, that the fight for feminism is far from over; that climate change is real or “piffle”; that transgender people need a voice; that “transgender” is nonsense semantics.

Those unwitting candidates were then paired with their opposites and sent together into warehouses, where they found themselves with some instructions and a piece of furniture to build.

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