In Malaysia, advertising alcohol is strictly prohibited. Displaying Heineken’s full logo on billboards or trucks could result in fines or arrests, excluding the brand from the US$335M/year outdoor media scene. This posed a challenge during Chinese New Year, the peak season for beer sales, as Heineken had to compete with locally beloved brands long associated with the celebration.

Auspicious greetings are a key part of Chinese New Year, many featuring the word “Hei” (happiness in Cantonese), such as “Hup Ka Foon Hei” and “Gong Hei Fatt Choi.” One cannot spell Heineken without those same three letters either. So, we designed a campaign that no other beer brand could own. We cropped the first three letters of our iconic logo to complete festive greetings. We featured them across our delivery trucks as they travelled 36,465 kilometres making deliveries throughout Malaysia. While instantly recognisable as Heineken, the cropped logos made the trucks technically unbranded and therefore totally legal billboards-in-disguise according to Malaysian advertising laws.

Romanised Cantonese ensured broad appeal in Malaysia, where most Malaysian Chinese understand spoken Cantonese but not written Chinese. This approach also resonated with non-Cantonese speakers familiar with these common Chinese New Year greetings, maximising the campaign’s reach.