LONDON: Heineken, the Dutch brewer, is rethinking the path to purchase in recognition of the new environment in which consumers perceive brands - with many more touchpoints than ever before now seen as points of purchase.

This is according to Ksenia Khalina, head of Global Heineken trade marketing, speaking at Supercharged in London. (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: How Heineken is adapting the purchase funnel.)

The crux of her contention is that online and offline channels are converging due to the mobile web, which renders brand opportunities far more flexible, and not only for advertising – providing a stimulus – but also for conversion.

As such, the term ‘funnel’ is fundamentally outdated, Khalina argued. Where the process of awareness, consideration, trial, and usage are static, introducing an online path leads to more nuanced thinking. At the awareness stage, we ought to think more broadly about a stimulus.

“If this stimulus is correct and I very quickly start really considering and I already want to try, and if you give me this solution, then I go for it,” she said. “We’re talking about the whole convergence of the conversion funnel.”

Then we need to understand the value of the search, the power of reviews in the consideration phase, she said. Notably, usage is no longer the end goal, as much as it is a moment of consumption with an opportunity for sharing and repeat purchase.

Through a campaign around the brand’s sponsorship of the Uefa Champions League, Khalina illustrated the development of such a campaign. Beginning with a hero film in traditional TVC format alongside shorter videos on social platforms, the campaign then moved quickly into consideration, driving viewers to an exclusive Deliveroo offer.

Core to this evolution of channels is social selling, Khalina explained: it’s about “creating a ‘shopportunity’ at any micro moment”.

Ultimately, Khalina argued, an adapted purchase funnel must lead to adapted and “dynamic” KPIs. “If you look at a classical conversion funnel, we were talking about a number of impressions, a number of clicks, conversions sometimes,” she said.

“But nowadays, we really need to look at the view-through rates more – that is one of our main KPIs now”, in addition to click through and attribution.

Sourced from WARC