“How to create an outstandingly enjoyable, social and memorable nightlife experience?”

To generate ideas for a futuristic clubbing experience, Heineken started a co-creation initiative by inviting a virtual team of 19 up-and-coming designers from all over the world. The team consisted of fashion-, product-, motion-, interior- and graphic designers. Their task: designing a concept club of the future from scratch, everything from the design of the bar to the design of the bottles, the lights to the uniforms of the employees.

To inspire the team, Heineken and InSights Consulting set up an online research panel with over 100 clubbers from all over the globe. The team of designers was able to ask for advice and present their ideas to the online research panel. This kind of co-creation was essential for this project. Since both the designers and the clubbers were located in various different continents, an online community website was created for communication. The clubbers were asked to describe their perfect night out, and post this on the online community website. This resulted in many discussion between the clubbers. Every opinion could potentially be the inspiration for dozens, or even hundreds of ideas. The designers were able to monitor these discussions 24/7, which enabled them to create a compact and intuitive infographic which only contained the core of the research. This interactive infographic was the conclusion of the needs, perception and experience of the clubbers, as described on the online community website.

After reviewing the posts and discussions of the clubbers, the designers created a preliminary pitch for the futuristic club. Heineken then organized different clubbing nights in Sao Paolo, New York, Tokyo and Milan, trying to incorporate some of the ideas in existing clubs. This enabled the designers to understand the context of the ideas, after which they could try to improve the experience.

The final result of the project was presented in Milan, during the Design Week. Several suggestions that were made by the online research panel, were used in the new club, like the origami-element at the entrance (picture below).

Masden, P. (2012) Heineken Open Design Explorations Edition 1: The Club, BrandGenetics, Available at: http://brandgenetics.com/cool-co-creation-examples-heineken/

Troch, T. (2012) De Heineken concept club: Van inspiratie naar co-creatie, Marketingfacts, Available at: https://www.marketingfacts.nl/berichten/de-heineken-concept-club-van-inspiratie-naar-co-creatie