Heineken Runs Global Facebook Ads for Valentine's Day

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Heineken's recent global marketing deal with Facebook is getting a strong embrace for Valentine's Day. The beverage brand - in conjunction with its agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam - has developed a dating app that's dubbed "The Serenade" for the social site. The campaign also includes a live YouTube event.

The initiative includes global ad spend on Facebook targeting Spain, Italy, and Australia, as well as the U.S. and Canada. Heineken told ClickZ News that 75 percent of the ads on the social site will target men, while zeroing in on the brand's fans/likes, their Facebook friends, and broader demos.

The app lets consumers send humorous personalized songs to potential dates on Facebook. According to Heineken, the songs can be created with four clicks. The app publishes the songs – there are 640 different "Serenades" available - to the user's Facebook wall while specifying a recipient. Then, the recipient can answer yes or no to the date idea.

ClickZ asked Floris Cobelens, a global digital manager at Heineken, how his brand's seven-week-old partnership with Facebook was faring. He said in an email that "it is a little too early to talk about results. However, Heineken's approach is that digital and social media should be planned for at inception rather than as an afterthought to the brand's ongoing activities."

On Feb. 9, Heineken's YouTube channel will run an eight hour live event for the Valentine's Day campaign. Individuals around the world will be able to serenade the object of their desire live on the video site, the beer brand said.

The Valentine's Day digital effort builds on Heineken's ongoing "The Date" theme, which was launched with a bevy of TV spots during fall 2011.

Last year, Facebook’s Marketing Solutions team began seeking deep relationships with brands like Heineken. The social site also attracted major deals with Diageo, American Express, Walmart, and Levi's. Facebook achieved ad revenues of $3.1 billion last year, according to the Menlo Park, CA-based company's February 1st IPO filing, which values Facebook at $100 billion.