How Heineken is disrupting the energy drink category in Africa

Brian Carruthers

Heineken tapped into its own product expertise, along with culturally led insights, to develop a new category of energy drink for the African market.

Heineken isn’t the first company you think of when talking about energy drinks, but it’s already got a big portfolio of non-alcoholic beverages, plus a stated ambition to move beyond beer.

Add in the fact that the energy drinks market is “massive” and “growing in every country that you can think of,” and it’s not so surprising that it is “something that we see as the place to play in,” Claire McFerran, Heineken’s Senior Global Category and Innovation Manager, Zero Alcohol Beverages, said at Advertising Week Europe (May 2023).

Heineken taps the ‘energy malt market’

The category, she explained, is...

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