Andy Glaser, Heineken USA

A hangar inside Zephyrhills Municipal Airport is pitch blackbut for a small section of the vast concrete floor. Accent lights trained on the spot create a bottle-green glow, flanked by huge digital screens displaying the Heineken logo. Gathered around are two dozen wholesalers that a chartered bus has just fetched from a nearby Tampa, Fla., hotel. They wait quietly. Suddenly the hangar door opens wide enough to admit a prop plane, which whirrs its way inside. The cockpit door swings open, and out onto the rung steps Jim Lovell. Yes, that Jim Lovell, the commander of the heroic Apollo 13 mission. Lovell greets his audience of wholesalers, launching into an inspirational talk about making history by doing something that had never been done before. Perhaps that theme is a stretch when applied to introducing a new brew, but the connection is clear to this crowd. And it's particularly clear to Heineken brand director Andy Glaser, who steps forward on cue to announce that a new product-one that had been discussed and debated for decades-was finally coming to four test markets. The product is Heineken Premium Light, and its development was so meticulously planned that going to the moon might have been simpler. HPL's selection process burned through 199 alternate names, 39 design schemes, 24 different brew formulas and nine packaging proposals.Through it all, Glaser was the man at Mission Control.That evening in the hangar in March 2005 was, in fact, only one of a series of awareness builders that Glaser orchestrated prior to HPL's national launch in April of last year. "I believe in building momentum," Glaser explained. "Momentum is everything in marketing. It's not the one big idea that drives success. It's about all the good ideas, big and small, that build momentum together."For the task at hand, Glaser would need all the good ideas he could muster, because HPL was attempting to do what competitors had only half succeeded in doing many times before. Beck's Premier Light, Grolsch Light, Corona Light, Sam Adams Light-all proved too close to the mother brands and, after the post-launch fanfare faded, ended at the bottom of the cooler. In the end, these light extensions merely offered a less-filling switch from the full calorie sister brand. For drinkers, these lights were a lateral trade, if not a trade down.Glaser was determined to avoid that fate, working to position HPL as a trade-up by stamping the brew as a "luxury light." Yet HPL didn't just have to be an attractive choice for drinkers, it had to be distinct enough to attract new customers while not siphoning off devotees of the 133-year-old traditional Heineken brew.ALL FOR ONEThe idea of launching a lighter version of Heineken was already shopworn by the time Glaser was hired in 2003. Many senior execs such as Heineken USA president Frans van der Minne had long been in favor, but Heineken N.V. president Alfred (Freddy) Heineken unfailingly insisted there could be only one Heineken. (It was his recalcitrance that fueled the company to enter the North American low-calorie beer sector in 1980 with a totally different brand name, Amstel Light.) In the wake of Freddy's death in January 2002, management had accepted the financial rationale for launching a low-cal Heineken. The question was how to do so without diluting Heineken's equity.Facing the work ahead of him, Glaser leaned on his years of military experience (he served as a lieutenant in the British Royal Marines). "I learned at an early age to appreciate the power of experience in others." Said Glaser. "When you're a 22-year-old officer just out of training, you appreciate the skill and experience in others and how you can achieve your aims by building trust and confidence in others around you. That helped me throughout my career and particularly with HPL."Glaser instituted a project-management system that relied on teams devoted to tackling various obstacles on the way to a final objective. Each team was expected to achieve consensus within its ranks before moving to the next phase. "Not only does Andy put thepeople on the teams, he does it in a way so all voices are heard, so the collective view is the one that gets expressed," related Brian Citron, HPL's senior brand manager. "He motivates everyone by reminding us that we're creating something new."Marketing creatives praised Glaser for writing clear briefs and, during video conferences between Amsterdam and the firm's White Plains, N.Y., headquarters, he aptly explained what the teams were learning and made a case for the direction they were headed. "Andy was excellent at maintaining the process and keeping the dialogue and momentum going," said Tom Chapman, senior partner at Landis Strategy and Innovation, a marketing consultancy in Palm Gardens, Fla., that assisted with HPL's development."His level of expectation [achieved] a kind of gestalt," added Bill Grogan, president of Berlin Cameron United, New York, which handles HPL advertising. "He just keeps tearing it apart and asking [whether things are] really operating the way we think [they are]."Like the marketing department at any leading brewer, Glaser's team understood that among the forces behind the choice of beer brands is a craving for small indulgences (the psychological key to the growth of high-end beverage purchases), the expression of individuality (which fuels the search for variety and image) and other factors, like concern for health. Low-cal beers themselves were, of course, nothing new-Miller Lite invented the category in 1975-but Glaser's teams hit upon a gaping hole in the middle of this system of supply and demand.There was a segment of beer drinkers that wanted to feel individual yet not get filled up. But there was no domestic light beer brand that was really delivering on both the social prestige and the taste fronts. (Even Heineken's own Amstel Light was too robust for many.)"We found a white space in the category," said Ken Kunze, vp-marketing for Heineken USA. "In terms of going after domestic light beer drinkers with a better beer that had more cachet, we had the formula." (HPL was a brew made with just a touch of the proprietary yeast culture that gives Heineken lager its ruddy, full-bodied flavor.)At the same time, it was critical that the new brew not cannibalize Heineken lager. That consideration was translated into the packaging. HPL would trade on Heineken's equity by using the brand name and associated visual symbols like the red star and medals, but the brew would sell in a slender bottle to signal that it was different."That skepticism about whether there could be two Heinekens really helped us in the project," said Glaser. "It kept us really honest and [helped us to] minimize the cannibalization effect."THE HEINEKEN HURDLEIn the fall of 2005, Glaser sent HPL to Tampa, Fla., Providence, R.I., Phoenix and Dallas to see how it would fly. The results were mixed. While it turned out that domestic light beer drinkers- the very demographic that HPL hoped to lure away from other brands-were well aware of the Heineken cachet, they also made an immediate association with its robust European flavor and concluded that they wouldn't like the taste of HPL."We didn't understand the Heineken Hurdle," said Glaser. "Light beer drinkers didn't believe that this was going to be the liquid for them despite it saying light on the bottle. Our communication wasn't designed to get at that issue."The antidote was a word that's already ubiquitous in the beer category: smooth. The descriptor may be overused, but placed next to the Heineken name, it still had the power to make would-be drinkers stop and consider. In the ensuing ad blitz, smoothness would be the operative idea. The 30-second "Succumb to smooth" spot showcased a bottle dancing to the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha."Amsterdam's expectations were met. After just nine months on the market, Heineken Premium Light shipments totaled 579,000 barrels, well over the initial target of 400,000 barrels. What's more, Heineken lager didn't suffer the cannibalization that some had predicted. That brand grew 7.3% and surpassed the 5 million barrel mark in the U.S. for the first time.HPL may be hitting a bit of a sophomore slump, though, at least in terms of meeting projections. While the light brew will probably beat last year's numbers, Heineken admitted upon releasing its first half financial results that it will not reach its target of 1 million hectoliters, or 850,000 barrels, this year and, as a consequence, will not break even.But while some observers take an I-told-you-so stance ("At some point, HPL will erode the basic Heineken premise," said John Grace, partner with Greenwich, Conn., consultancy Brand Taxi), Glaser is confident HPL has accomplished its objective, which includes broadening the Heineken brand-name overall. "When I first came to Heineken, the job was about overall revitalization of the brand," he said. "We've done that partly through HPL and also through other strategies we've developed. The results have been beyond expectation." On a more personal note, he added, "Heineken Premium Light was a once-in-a career opportunity." Photo by Chris Casaburi

Brand Marketing

Andy Glaser, Heineken USA

Mike Beirne

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Mike Beirne