Heineken's a minute-long ad draws online ire over vaccination promotion

Heineken ran a minute-long ad on social media on Thursday showing senior citizens dancing in a nightclub and racing to take a dip at a nearby beach. It ended with the message, “The night belongs to the vaccinated. Time to join them.”

By Friday, bands of aggrieved users on Twitter were threatening to #BoycottHeineken. Some uploaded videos of themselves opening bottles of the brewer’s namesake lager and pouring it down their kitchen sinks in protest. Others described the ad as pro-vaccination propaganda.

The ad is “all about supporting the hospitality industry and getting back to the bars and restaurants safely so we can all be together again,” a Heineken spokesman said. Last year, Heineken, which has a sizeable pub estate in the UK, offered vouchers during lockdowns that drinkers could redeem for pints when bars reopened.

The world’s second-largest beermaker joins companies implementing ad campaigns and corporate policies to promote inoculation. Top executives are increasingly positioning themselves at the forefront of fighting anti-vaccine sentiment, which is marked in countries, such as the US, France and Russia. It also poses a singular risk to the business models of brands built on social interaction in bars, restaurants and nightclubs.

Budweiser beer, owned by Anheuser-Busch, decided not to run a commercial during the Super Bowl in February for the first time in 40 years and allocated that spending to the Ad Council’s pro-vaccination campaigns. Immunisations will “liberate people,” ex-CEO Carlos Brito said at the time.