Heineken Ignite: Heineken's first interactive beer bottle.
Heineken embraces the start-up culture of experimentation because it knows that invention never sleeps.
The brand understands that the best āuser experiencesā tap into existing consumer behaviors and push technology into the background.
The intent of the Heineken Ignite project was to develop an idea that would create a memorable Heineken experience unlocking the power and possibilities of mobile innovation and technology.
Heineken believes that mobile innovation could offer a much more rewarding experience than just an app and embraced the challenge to think about how the product could be leveraged as an interface to the brand experience.
A prototype of Heineken Ignite was revealed 9 April at Milan Design Week as part of Heinekenās Lounge of the Future concept.
Process Innovation
The hardest part of innovation isnāt having a strong idea, itās making it happen within the increasingly faster pace that new technologies and innovations are rolled out. Heineken recognized it needed to adopt the principles of lean start-ups, and applied the āSparkā process developed by Tribal DDB. It provides a complete production path which includes research, ideation, development, consumer validation and prototyping within the period of just 10 weeks.
A team of carefully selected specialists from within and beyond the organization, were put on a mission to create a pioneering Heineken experience for people to interact with during a nightclub occasion.
To meet this brief, the Global Heineken Digital team and Tribal DDB Amsterdam have built a multidisciplinary creative team partnering with Massive Music, Contagious, C10, the Global Heineken Design team and independent experts from a wide range of industries. They have adopted best practices from the tech start-up community developmental processes and working closely with the Heineken team, in just 10 weeks, they have engineered and designed a viable prototype of a truly innovative product.Ā
Ā Heineken's first interactive beer bottle
A bottle is something that we all take for granted, yet Heineken leads the way to turn it into a creative item; introducing new bottle shapes, materials (PET and Aluminium) and printing techniques (UV ink etc).
We would like to introduce Heinekenās first smart beer bottle that can interact with other Ignite bottles, its environment and the people around it, bringing together: interaction, data and networking thinking. It enriches social experiences using the bottle and technology in a surprising way and making high tech feel fun, organic and seamless.
Heinekenās first interactive bottle uses micro sensors and wireless networking technology to sense the moment when a bottle is being used to say āCheersā.Ā The bottle can also actively respond to the music and the output of specific audio and data cues. For example, it can detect various motion types such as cheering, drinking and sitting idle on the bar top. The motions trigger certain light effects lighting up the complete bottle, enhanced by the swirls of beer, carbon dioxide and oxygen. Next to that the bottle lights can be remotely activated, so that each bottle becomes an active light source controlled by specially developed VJ software, allowing to synchronize all bottles to the music beat.
The housing under the bottle gives room to a custom designed circuit board based around the open source Arduino hard- and software platform. It features 8 bright LEDs, an efficient 8-bit microprocessor, an accelerometer to detect various motion types and a wireless network transceiver to communicate with the outside world. The 3D printed housing (designed and developed by C10) is built up of two parts, allowing to re-use the unit on multiple bottles of beer.
Heineken and Innovation
Heineken has a passion for progressive design and innovation. We continuously ask ourselves how design, technology and innovation can play a role in creating new memorable brand experiences that will also spark social connections and conversations.Ā
The interactive beer bottle is an example of Heinekenās commitment to using pioneering technology and design to create inventive new ways to experience the product and the brand. A limited number of 200 bottles are launched for the first time at the Milan Design Fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile 2013.Ā
Earlier in the week, from its buzzing pop-up 'Magazzini' at Milan Design Week, Heineken invited designers from around the world to collaborate on building the ultimate concept lounge bar. This is the second edition of its Heineken Open Design Explorations (ODE) innovation project. To be part of the 2013/14 Heineken Open Design Explorations team, designers have until May 31 to apply on www.heineken.tumblr.com, whilst people can share their lounge bar experiences by uploading instagram pictures of lounge bar experiences using the hashtag #futureloungedesign. The best will be featured on the Tumblr.Ā
The Heineken Ignite interactive bottle is born from Heinekenās ambition to develop an idea that would create a memorable Heineken experience unlocking the power and possibilities of mobile innovation and technology. To match our ambitions we followed an innovative project methodology developed by Tribal DDB called āSPARKā.Ā It's an innovation process which blends inspiration, ideation and creation to produce an actual working prototype which can be tested in theĀ real world. The project is run like a start-up, which means collaborative ideation, rapid prototyping, multiple rounds of user testing and feedback, all under tight timings. The first 3 day workshop was held end of February in Amsterdam where the Global Heineken Digital team and Tribal DDB Amsterdam built a multidisciplinary creative team partnering with Massive Music, Contagious, the Global Heineken Design team and independent experts from a wide range of industries. Over the 3 days the team goes from a TED like inspiration workshop on day 1, to ideation and refinement of ideas during day 2 and 3.Ā A total of 3 fully fledged briefings were chosen, one of which gets the go-ahead for prototype development. The selected brief was based on the idea that when people 'cheers' with their bottles, 'something magical' should happen: a Heineken moment.
Click read more for more information or download the PDF here.
The first prototype below was clunky and still separate from the bottle itself, but it was used to demonstrate that the basic idea works!
The next challenge was to minimize the hardware.Ā Everything should fit underneath a bottle of Heineken, and there's electronics on this board to rival your iPhone: 8 led lights, a processor, an accelerometer, gyroscope and a wireless transmitter with antenna. Fifty individual components all need to seamlessly work together. With a custom designed board the tech team manages to squeeze the whole board to just over the size of a 2 Euro coin.
The boards need their own custom casing, so the team from product design firm C10 started developing 3D printed designs which will hold the boards. There's a host of requirements the casing needs to meet, it should be unobtrusive and stylish, made from a material that allows rapid manufacture (timings are incredibly tight), it needs to withstand cooling and house both board and battery.
Ā The teams figured out a way to split the case design into two parts, one dummy part which is attached to the bottle and is disposable, and another which can be screwed on which holds all the electronics and the battery. This should be done last minute before serving because the cold of the fridge plays havoc with battery life.Ā Prototype after prototype was produced as we were getting closer to a final version.
Meanwhile, work on the final designs for the boards continued, as well as the programming of the custom software. This wasn't a straightforward linear process, more like a meandering road towards improvement, but with many setbacks, baffling failures and unexpected outcomes along the way.
Packaging and board design were now coming together. Here you see a picture of a 3D printed prototype in Heineken green, with the red star that blocks the battery from powering, as well as the circuit board perfectly fitting in. The battery is hidden underneath the board and the packaging has become much less obtrusive due to the color, the design (which matches the style of the Heineken Lounge club in Milan, where we will first test the prototype) and the slightly tapered shape which makes the whole thing less obvious. You can still see it underneath the bottle, but it feels like a design object now, not a strange bolt-on piece of plastic.
When software, hardware and casing design come together we have the final prototype ready to launch at the special Lounge of the Future at Milan's Salone Del Mobile design week on April 9th, 2013.Ā The bottle is activated by two people 'cheersing', sending a bright flash of light up through the green glass. When you drink, the LEDs spin faster and faster and when you put the bottle down on a surface it goes to āsleepā and ābreatheā. But best of all, at certain moments during the night we can communicate with the bottles and sync the LEDs to the beat, so we can create epic Heineken moments when the DJ, laser show, club lights and bottles all come together to form a club experience that people are part of.Ā With the Heineken Ignite bottle, we have created the first social bottle, which blends human behavior and communication, club environment and interaction together with the iconic green Heineken bottle for a unique experience.
ā¢ The launch in Milan provided Heineken with learnings on how the prototype would perform in a real life environment. The concept is being optimized and based on the success of the prototype launch, Heineken are now rolling it out in nightclubs in 7 of their top 25 markets before the end of the year.
ā¢ The 2.0 version of Ignite has also already been identified and worked on for 2014.
