The real-time social experiment promotion gave passengers the chance to travel to a mystery destination
Beer supplier Heineken created a real-time social experiment promotion in July for travellers at New York’s JFK airport, giving passengers the chance to travel to a destination that wasn’t on their boarding card.
The Departure Roulette promotion invited randomly selected passengers to press a button on an old style flight clicker board in return for promising they would cancel their current flight plans and travel immediately to the destination that appeared on the board. 
University of Connecticut student Greg Vositis (pictured right)was the first lucky participant who instead of travelling to Vienna to visit his grandparents, switched his plans to fly to Cyprus for two nights with paid accommodation and $2,000 to cover expenses.
Heineken also arranged a flight from Cyprus to Vienna later that same week and from Vienna back to New York to accommodate Vositis’ original plans. Another seven travellers also won trips to destinations including Portugal, Thailand and Laos.
Heineken Global Duty Free marketing manager Natascha Waterbeek stated: “Although this is not a duty-free activation as such, as a global brand Heineken takes a holistic approach that engages seamlessly across all channels in all markets. Heineken is the number one premium international beer available in 198 countries around the world, therefore, airlines and airports with their international nature are a strategic fit and perfect channel for us. We want to inspire our consumers to be resourceful and open to the world.
“Innovation is at the heart of how we are redefining the beer category throughout travel-retail, with specially-designed concepts that make the category into much more of a premium proposition than in the past. In airports we are growing the number of Heineken bars and lounges at the world’s leading hubs as well as delivering excitement with events like this one at JFK.”
The company is creating displays on ferries and at border stores that stand out at point-of-purchase with travel-specific designs such as Beers of the World displays that introduce its broader range of portfolio brands next to Heineken.
“On cruise ships we’re really seeing the commercial benefits of bringing a spirit of entertainment through bar staff training to create the perfect pouring ritual via the Heineken Star Serve onboard edition. We’re actively developing much more innovation as a core aspect of our strategy in travel-retail and will be revealing details of some of these at the Tax Free World Association exhibition in Cannes in October.”
The JFK activation was inspired by Heineken’s current global multi-media campaign “Voyage”, the fifth instalment of the Heineken Legends platform.
DFNI