Heineken Encourages People to Work Less and Happy Hour More

The beer brand created a bottle opener that puts laptops into sleep mode

It’s difficult to admit, but sometimes it’s hard to stop working. There’s always another email to send or report to skim or something you could be doing late into the evening to position yourself for a better start the next morning.

Heineken wants the office workers of the world to reconsider this impulse. To provide some assistance, the beer brand has introduced a new campaign featuring a high-tech bottle opener that shuts down Zoom calls and Excel spreadsheets immediately.

In a new 2-minute spot, created by Publicis Worldwide, the brewer shows people trapped in the rise and grind culture of laptops open in bars and taxi cabs. There’s no balance between life and work—something many people can relate to during the past couple years of work being wherever they can connect to the internet.

“As a brand, we have always stood for creating moments of shared connections with others,” Bram Westenbrink, global head of the Heineken brand, in a statement. “With the once-rigid boundaries between work and personal time rapidly deteriorating following the Covid-19 pandemic, we want to spark a much-needed conversation about the importance of resisting the societal pressures to be in a constant state of busy work and encourage workers around the world to reprioritize social and leisure time with the people who matter most.”

Unless people are drinking on the job, more hours spent working also leaves fewer for imbibing.

The global campaign is set to run on TV, streaming audio and various social media platforms throughout the summer in more than a dozen markets around the world.

On June 8, Heineken plans to give away a handful of the bottle openers, called The Closer, which actually do what’s shown in the commercial. The Bluetooth-enabled devices force nearby laptops into sleep mode when used to open a bottle, according to a spokesperson.

“As people continue to feel like they have to work all the time, they’re forgetting that disconnecting is even an option,” Bruno Bertelli, global chief creative officer of Publicis Worldwide, said in a statement. “That’s why we created The Closer. It’s not just technology; it’s a social provocation to help people see that the pressure to work all the time is getting a little ridiculous and we all have the power to log off and go hang out with our friends again.”


In the U.S., actor and comedian Billy Eichner will help kick off the campaign with a launch event for The Closer in New York City. Similar to other alcohol brands, Heineken has jumped back into in-person marketing functions in recent months.

Heineken also plans to pay U.S. workers to add a work-blocking meeting to their calendar at the end of the day to allow for a happy hour with friends and colleagues. Participants can earn $5 for each of their friends’ calendars they block, too (up to $20).

As a company, Heineken employs more than 80,000 people. The brewer established an employee wellbeing program in 2021 to identify causes of work-life imbalance, and plans to host more than 1,000 workshops worldwide in the coming months to help support the professional, emotional, social and physical wellbeing of all employees.

“While work-life imbalance is an issue felt around the world, it can’t be solved with just one policy change,” Yolanda Talamo, Heineken’s global head of human resources, said in a statement. “This high-tech bottle opener is a symbol that acts as a catalyst for change, but the work is ahead of us.”