Heineken explores First-Party Data options against cookieless future
Heineken, one of the world’s largest brewers is working towards future-proofing its data strategies around identity, privacy, consent, and use data across its brands to ensure it can segment and target across channels.
Following Google’s announcement that it would block third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by 2022 and wouldn’t support alternative IDs, there has been a sense of urgency among brands to shift away from third-party data.
Heineken who also owns Dos Equis and Tecate initially relied on data management platform (DMP); now the brewery giant is exploring new opportunities and more sustainable solution because DMPs are built on cookies and aggregate third-party marketing data.
Rebekah Kennedy, Heineken’s director of consumer insights said: “An issue we had with DMP-based segments historically was that we lacked a lot of insight. DMPs are built on those more anonymous identifiers, and that will become a lot harder to use once these browser changes come. We needed to really look to replace the anonymous identifiers with a more sustainable solution that was built on identity, which we think is used more consistently across channels.”
Last year as part of a strategy that relied on information collected directly from consumers, Heineken embarked on a customer data strategy to understand more about its consumers, drive brand awareness, implement personalized campaigns, and promotions to build one-to-one customer relationships.
The company dumped its DMP and partnered with customer data platform BlueConic. BlueConic allows Heineken USA to build segments based on consumer interests and marketing consent, which can be applied to campaigns across the Heineken, Tecate and Dos Equis brands.
Kennedy explained: “The advantage of having a first-party data strategy is primarily just understanding more about consumers. And one of our goals for doing that was to improve media efficiency and effectiveness through segmentation and consumer engagement strategies.”
Achieving the direct consumer relationship is particularly challenging for CPGs like Heineken, which sell to distributors and, as alcoholic beverage companies, are by law prohibited from selling directly to consumers.
BlueConic COO Cory Munchbach said that with third-party cookies going away, more CPG companies are turning to CDPs to embrace DTC business models and manage consent.
“We’re also seeing a lot of companies using this as an opportunity to rethink fundamental parts of their business and innovate around revenue models,” Munchbach said.
Kennedy told AdExchanger that the partnership with BlueConic is part of a larger strategy at Heineken that includes work with Dentsu agency Merkle as an identity partner, in part to extend the company’s reach in CTV.
Heineken is working with BlueConic on email marketing initiatives. The company is also using first-party data across social platforms and anyone that accepts an identifier.
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