Heineken puts Thai fans at the heart of Champions League nights

Heineken has teamed up with Dentsu Thailand to launch “Cheers to the real hardcore fans”, a campaign designed to reignite the beer brand’s football legacy in Thailand during the UEFA Champions League season.

Rather than centering the action on the pitch, the campaign spotlighted the fans, turning match nights into immersive experiences that stretched across city streets, digital platforms, and living rooms.

In Bangkok and other key cities, billboards carried real-time UEFA scores to keep fans engaged with the tournament, while high-reach digital activity across streaming platforms, social media, and football hubs amplified the excitement with influencers and die-hard supporters lending their voices.

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Heineken also staged “Road to the final” events in six major cities, creating fan zones complete with live analysis and performances to recreate the atmosphere of stadium nights. To reward the late-night loyalists, the brand introduced its first-ever Heineken experience exclusive pyjamas, a limited-edition drop that celebrated those who stayed up into the early hours.

At-home viewing was further elevated through a collaboration with Pizza Hut, which offered “Champions sets” combining food delivery with limited-edition collectibles to recreate the shared spirit of match-day gatherings.

The campaign sought to re-establish Heineken’s premium edge in Thailand’s competitive beer market by transforming regular match nights into cultural moments, ensuring the brand stayed visible, relevant, and top-of-mind throughout the tournament.

“The rhythm of Thai football fandom is one that only true fans know, and that deserves to be celebrated. With “Cheers to the real hardcore fans’, we wanted to bottle that spirit and celebrate it in ways that fans could feel everywhere," said Thanlaphol Nipatarangkul, senior media and digital manager at Thai Asia Pacific Trading Co., Ltd..

He added, "We brought the toast; dentsu Thailand mapped the night. We turned city streets into scoreboards and living rooms into arenas, raising a glass to the fans who make the game a way of life.”

In tandem, Chanokpol Engpongpun, business director at Dentsu Media Thailand, said, “We made the city our canvas, meeting fans in the moments where they felt most alive and stitching them together so that the celebration could travel from street to screen to sofa. And that is how Heineken showed up, rising from logo to host, and becoming the toast of the night."

The Thailand campaign builds on Heineken’s long-standing association with football, following recent efforts across the region. In May this year, the brand launched “Trust bars” in Seoul, a series of 24/7 self-service bars created with LePub’s innovation arm LeGarage. The concept tapped into Korea’s tech-forward, trust-based culture to let fans pour their own pints and watch UEFA Champions League matches that typically air at 4am or 5am, hours when most bars remain shut.

Meanwhile in Jakarta, Heineken turned office life into football fever with its “Football time-off day” campaign. Between 13 and 15 April, unsuspecting workers were surprised by UEFA legends Bastian Schweinsteiger and Luís Nani, who turned up at their desks carrying the coveted Champions League Trophy. The initiative celebrated Indonesia’s football-loving workforce and brought the spirit of the game into the everyday grind.

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