For HEINEKEN, whose brands are built in and with the on-trade, this challenge strikes at the heart of socialising itself. Pubs are not just points of sale; they are cultural institutions where communities connect, traditions are passed down, and memories are made. Protecting them is vital for the future of the category and for the safeguarding of communities. 

A long-term commitment: Back the Bars 

Back the Bars is our global platform designed to support bars and pubs and help them thrive in the long term. Accelerated by the pandemic but built for the future, Back the Bars makes a sustained commitment to the on-trade, combining financial support, creative marketing investment, and culturally relevant initiatives. 

From global voucher systems that channelled over €8.2 million directly to bars during pandemic lockdowns, to rental waivers worth nearly €50 million, to award-winning campaigns like Shutter Ads and Starring Bars, we have consistently redirected our scale, resources, and creativity toward the people and places that make socialising possible. 

Local roots, global reach 

Pub Succession is another initiative within our commitment to support bars, which exemplifies Heineken®’s global success story – born in Amsterdam, raised by the world. While Back the Bars is a global platform, its most powerful expressions come from deep local insight and cultural relevance. 

In Ireland, this commitment comes to life through ''For the Love of Pubs'', a local initiative designed to support and safeguard the rich heritage of Irish pubs for generations to come. Pub Succession became one of its most powerful expressions; a local story with global resonance.  

At its core, Pub Succession set out to address the real issue of generational succession within the Irish pub trade, recognising that pubs are more than businesses; they are custodians of culture. Family-run Irish pubs face an uncertain future as more than four in ten rural publicans say they are considering retirement but 84% have no family to take on their legacy.

The campaign centred on Josie McLoughlin, a fourth-generation publican and owner of the 155-year-old McLoughlin’s Bar on Achill Island. With no family heir to take over the pub, Josie faced the prospect of closing this piece of Irish social history. 

Rather than simply highlighting the problem, Heineken® took action. ''Pub Succession'' launched a global search to find the next custodian of McLoughlin’s Bar – someone willing not just to run a pub, but to protect its legacy. 

Leveraging Ireland’s far-reaching diaspora, the campaign tapped into emotional connections to home, heritage, and identity. Heineken® used its global reach to amplify the story, activating it across high-impact media channels in cities like Sydney, Boston, Toronto, and New York – even placing the campaign on Times Square Digital Screens – the last place Achill Islands local publican could have imagined he'd see himself. Timed around St. Patrick’s Day, the activation maximised cultural relevance and engagement, transforming a local succession challenge into an international movement. 

The response exceeded all expectations, demonstrating the cultural power of the idea: Over 1 billion global media impressions, 2,100+ news articles across 128 countries, and over 2,000 applications from potential successors. Two McLoughlin descendants were even flown to Ireland to meet Josie and reconnect with their roots. 

The campaign was shortlisted for the Titanium Lion at Cannes, recognising its ability to drive real-world impact through culture rather than traditional advertising alone. 

Shaping the future of beer, and beyond 

Pub Succession shows how Heineken® is shaping the future of beer by looking beyond the product to the social spaces that give it meaning. By investing in pubs as cultural institutions, not just commercial outlets, the brand reinforces its role as a genuine partner to the on-trade. 

The campaign didn’t just aim to secure the future of one pub, it reignited a broader conversation about protecting the places where social life happens. Because shaping the future of beer starts with protecting the future of socialising. 

The HEINEKEN Company is proud to share its recent wins at this year's Golden Drum Festival. Demonstrating the power of creativity and cultural relevance, we have won an impressive 19 Drum Awards at one of Europe’s most prestigious advertising and communications events. 

The recognition spans multiple campaigns and categories: from Film, Sustainability, and Innovation to Brand Building, Design, and Social Good. These accolades showcase HEINEKEN's ongoing commitment to harnessing creativity for meaningful brand impact, with their eponymous brand gathering top recognition with the Brand Grand Prix for their outstanding contribution to the industry.

In collaboration with long-standing global agency partner LePub, The HEINEKEN Company earned recognition for standout Heineken® brand projects such as ‘Pub Succession’, 'Starring Bars’, 'The Flipper’, 'Excuses Bar’, and ‘Pub Delivery’, as well as the Desperados brand 'Guao Guao' campaign. As a crowning achievement, HEINEKEN's lead agency LePub was awarded Agency of the Year, affirming the strength of the partnership and its role in delivering innovative, culturally resonant work. 

The Heineken® Pub Succession project stood out as a creative high point, securing the coveted Grand Prix and 1 Gold in the Engagement category, along with 1 Golden Drum for Brand Building, and a Silver Drum in B2B. This groundbreaking project combined compelling brand storytelling with cultural preservation and community engagement, driving a heartfelt recruitment effort to find the next publican for a historic Irish pub. 

The Flipper, a witty phone accessory designed to encourage people to put down their phones during social gatherings; by flipping it face down when it ‘heard’ the word cheers, earned three prestigious awards: a Silver Drum in Engagement and two Bronze Drums for Design and Innovation. Developed in collaboration with inventor and YouTuber Simone Giertz, this campaign tackled the growing issue of digital distraction. 

Pub Delivery clinched a Bronze Drum in Engagement for its fresh take on delivery and local visibility. Meanwhile, the Starring Bars campaign - transforming bars into authentic film sets for Heineken® commercials - garnered an impressive three Awards (two Silver and one Bronze Drum) across Engagement, Sustainable Business Solutions, and B2B. This powerful initiative reinforced HEINEKEN’s purpose-led commitment to supporting the hospitality sector through creative excellence and tangible business support.

The Excuses Bar campaign won a Silver Drum in the OOH category for its playful and inventive approach. Transforming bars into immersive, themed experiences, the campaign cleverly redefined "excuses" to go out, offering people genuine reasons to reconnect and engage in the real world. 

The Desperados brand ‘Guao Guao’ campaign also won big, claiming a prestigious Grand Prix in Film. The campaign's creative excellence was further recognized with 2 Gold and 1 Silver Drum for Motion Craft, 2 Silver across the Film and Sports, Pop Culture & Art categories, and an additional Bronze in Content.

List of Awards: 

BRAND GRAND PRIX: The HEINEKEN Company 

-- 

Heineken® Brand 

Excuses Bar 

• Silver Drum in Section One-Channel Drum / group C. Out of Home (OOH) / category Ambient & Experiential 

Pub Delivery 

• Bronze Drum in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group C. Engagement / category Direct 

Pub Succession 

• Grand Prix in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group C. Engagement / category Direct 

• Golden Drum in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group C. Engagement / category Public & Community Relations 

• Golden Drum in Section Creative Business Excellence Drum / group A. Brand Building / category Brand Strategy and Experience 

• Silver Drum in Section Creative Business Excellence Drum / group H. B2B / category B2B Brand Strategy & Experience 

Starring Bars 

• Silver Drum in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group C. Engagement / category Public & Community Relations 

• Silver Drum in Section Creative Business Excellence Drum / group D. Sustainable Business Solutions 

• Bronze Drum in Section Creative Business Excellence Drum / group H. B2B / category B2B Storytelling 

The Flipper 

• Silver Drum in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group C. Engagement / category Creative Use of Technology 

• Bronze Drum in Section One-Channel Drum / group F. Design / category Product Design 

• Bronze Drum in Section Creative Business Excellence Drum / group G. Innovation / category Product or Service Innovation 

Desperados 

Guao Guao 

• Grand Prix in Section One-Channel Drum / group A. Film / category Long Film 

• Golden Drum in Section Craft Drum / group B. Motion Craft (Video / Moving Images) / category Casting 

• Golden Drum in Section Craft Drum / group B. Motion Craft (Video / Moving Images) / category Original Music 

• Silver Drum in Section One-Channel Drum / group A. Film / category TV/Cinema Film 

• Silver Drum in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group F. Sports, Pop Culture & Art / category Entertainment 

• Silver Drum in Section Craft Drum / group B. Motion Craft (Video / Moving Images) / category Cinematography 

• Bronze Drum in Section Omni-Channel Drum / group B. Content / category Films 

END 

Media contact: 

Luca Orioli - LePub Senior PR Manager: luca.orioli@le.pub 

Chronobiologist Laura Kervezee (1989), who works at Leiden University Medical Centre, has been awarded the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 in the field of Medical/Biomedical Sciences. The jury praised her research into the biological clock and its practical translation into the improvement of patient care. The chronobiological knowledge that Kervezee provides, gives insight into ways of keeping the biological clock healthy in our 24-hour society and other situations in which the clock becomes disturbed, such as when ageing or in hospital. In health care, these insights are used to improve the functioning of drugs and therapies.

Heineken Young Scientists Award in the Humanities: Fleur Jongepier

Philosopher Fleur Jongepier (1986), connected to Radboud University Nijmegen, has been awarded the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 in the field of Humanities. The jury praised her research into the growing power of algorithms and how this affects the human capacity for autonomy and self-knowledge. Jongepier is able to combine high-level fundamental research with an active and important role in the current social debate.

Heineken Young Scientists Award in the Natural Sciences: Jordi Tura i Brugués

Mathematician Jordi Tura i Brugués (1987), connected to the Lorentz Institute at Leiden University, has been awarded the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 in the field of Natural Sciences. The jury praised his pioneering contributions to the theory of quantum entanglement and nonlocality. He adapted Bell's theorem, which is used to show entanglement of two particles, to fit large numbers of particles. An important step for the further development of the quantum computer and the quantum internet.

Heineken Young Scientists Award in the Social Sciences: Liesbeth van Vliet

Health psychologist Liesbeth van Vliet (1985), connected to Leiden University, has been awarded the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 in the field of Social Sciences. The jury praised her important contribution to improving the quality of healthcare for seriously ill patients, thanks to better communication between doctor and patient. Van Vliet's research into how communication can help and harm patients shows a valuable translation between research and society.

Carolyn Bertozzi

Carolyn Bertozzi, professor of Chemistry and, by courtesy, Chemical & Systems Biology at Stanford University, is receiving the Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics 2022. The award honours Bertozzi's ground-breaking research into communication between cells and methods of influencing this communication.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art:

Remy Jungerman

Visual artist Remy Jungerman is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art 2022. The jury praises the artist for the way he interweaves the cultures of the countries that define him: Suriname, the Netherlands, and the United States. By using geometric patterns and horizontals composed of panels varying of length, width, and colour, Jungerman creates an extensive layering in his work. This initiates a dialogue between disparate cultures

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine:

Vishva M. Dixit

Vishva M. Dixit, vice president of Early Discovery Research at Genentech, is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine 2022. The award honours his pioneering biomedical research on apoptosis, the process of programmed cell death, and necrosis, where cell death is caused by factors outside the cell such as infection or trauma. His discoveries have provided mechanistic insight for new clinical treatments, including immunotherapy in cancer patients.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for History:

Sunil Amrith

Sunil Amrith, professor of History at Yale University, is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for History 2022. The award honours his search for the historical origins of the great inequality that exists between and within countries as well as the connection that he has identified to the impact of climate change.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences:

Carl Folke

Carl Folke, director of the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics and founder and chair of the board of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences 2022. The award honours his pioneering role in the integrated approach to sustainability issues. The environmental scientist was one of the first to argue that society and nature must be examined as a whole in order to maintain the resilience of Earth's social and ecological systems.

C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science:

Kia Nobre

Kia Nobre, professor of Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, is receiving the C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science 2022. The award honours her innovative approach to imaging and understanding the human brain as well as the impact of this work on numerous subfields of cognitive neuroscience, including attention, working memory, long-term memory, and language.

Meta Roestenberg, internist-infectiologist at Leiden University Medical Centre

Meta Roestenberg (b. 1981) is receiving the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2020 in the Medical/Biomedical Sciences for her research on the development of a malaria vaccine. With some 228 million cases and more than 400,000 deaths each year, malaria is one of the world’s most serious infectious diseases, affecting young children in particular. The candidate vaccine developed by Dr Roestenberg and her colleagues is the first genetically modified vaccine in the world.

Humanities

Mark Dingemanse, linguist at Radboud University Nijmegen

Mark Dingemanse (b. 1983) is receiving the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2020 in the Humanities for his research into why languages are the way they are and how using language makes us human. His research is primarily fundamental but is also relevant to all kinds of social developments. We are talking more and more to devices, such as the iPhone’s Siri and Google Home. For this to run smoothly, we need to know more about the structure of conversations, and preferably about their universal structure, i.e. not just limited to a few European languages. Dingemanse’s research can contribute to this.

Natural Sciences

Freddy Rabouw, physicist/chemist at Utrecht University

Freddy Rabouw (b. 1988) is receiving the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2020 in the Natural Sciences for his research on new materials to generate light, for example for solar cells or display screens. The materials he studies are mainly nanocrystals of only a few thousand atoms in size. What he is attempting to understand is how such a nanocrystal can efficiently convert one colour of light into another. This is fundamental research, but with various applications. For example, semiconductor nanocrystals, also known as “quantum dots”, are used in the latest generation of televisions.

Social Sciences

Anna van Duijvenvoorde, developmental psychologist at Leiden University

Anna van Duijvenvoorde (b. 1983) is receiving the Heineken Young Scientists Award 2020 in the Social Sciences for her research on the development of the brain and behaviour in adolescents. Her work involves fundamental research but can have important social applications. For example, her research on how young people learn can help understand the impact of online education during the corona crisis.

About the Heineken Young Scientists Awards 

The winners of the Heineken Young Scientists Awards are selected from four research domains: Medical/Biomedical Sciences, Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences. The jury consists of Academy members and members or alumni of The Young Academy. This year, it was chaired by Carl Figdor, an Academy member and professor of immunology at Radboud University Nijmegen. Each prize comprises a monetary award of EUR 10,000 (funded by the Alfred Heineken Fondsen Foundation) and an artwork.

The Heineken Young Scientists Awards are among the ten prizes making up the biennial Heineken Prizes for Science and the Arts. The winners of the Heineken Prizes will receive their prize on Thursday 1 October 2020.

Bruce Stillman

Bruce Stillman, President of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the state of New York (USA), is receiving the Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics 2020 for his ground-breaking research on the way DNA is copied in eukaryotic cells, a process of fundamental importance to life on earth.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art:

Ansuya Blom

On 1 May, the Academy announced that the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art 2020 is awarded to Dutch visual artist Ansuya Blom.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine:

Karl Deisseroth

Karl Deisseroth, Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (USA), is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine 2020 for developing optogenetics — a method to influence the activity of nerve cells with light — as well as for developing hydrogel-tissue chemistry, which enables researchers to make biological tissue accessible to light and molecular probes.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for History:

Lorraine Daston

Lorraine Daston, director emerita of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Germany), is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Historical Sciences 2020 for her

study of the development of the concept of objectivity and the transformation she has brought about in the history of science.

Photo: Johan Wahlgren for SCAS

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences:

Corinne Le Quéré

Corinne Le Quéré, Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science at the University of East Anglia (UK), is receiving the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences 2020 for her interdisciplinary research on the interaction between climate change and the carbon cycle.

C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science:

Robert Zatorre

Robert Zatorre, Professor of Neuroscience at McGill University (Canada), is receiving the C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Sciences 2020 for his contribution to the discipline of music cognition. He studies how our nervous system ensures that we can make and enjoy music.

Jury report

Her work does not clamour for attention, nor does Ansuya Blom herself. She chooses to stay in the background and lets her work subtly penetrate. For more than forty years Blom has been steadily working on an oeuvre that explores the boundaries of the inner world of experience. In films, drawings, paintings, installations and texts, she always manages to get under the skin and portrays humankind's struggle with itself and the environment in an engaging and poetic way.

Blom's work radiates a great social and societal commitment. With her interest in psychoanalysis and psychiatry, her work offers a space for the voices of those who are often not heard: the marginalised or forgotten people. The artist asks critical questions about the position of the individual, collective and society. At a time when much debate is polarised, her work is characterised by subtlety. Blom offers a look into the human soul, in all its fragile vulnerability, and does so authentically and autonomously.

The jury also praised her generous attitude in the Dutch art world, where Blom repeatedly takes on the task of mentoring young artists. The Heineken Prize for Art comes at an important time, during which a new generation of artists and curators is rediscovering Blom's oeuvre and becoming very interested in it. The prize increases this momentum and will enable Blom to make new connections.

About the laureate

Ansuya Blom (Groningen 1956) lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and Ateliers '63 in Haarlem. Blom has been working in various art forms, including drawing, painting, photography, film, text, collage and sculpture, since the late seventies. In 1981 she received the Royal Award for Modern Painting. Her films have been screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin, IDFA Amsterdam and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her work can be found in the collections of museums, including the EYE Filmmuseum, Tate Modern and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. She has had solo exhibitions at the Camden Arts Centre in London, the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and recently the Casco Art Institute in Utrecht. Blom also holds a master's degree in psychoanalysis from Middlesex University in London and is an associate member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research in London.

Ansuya Blom is an advisor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and was a guest advisor at art institutions in the United Kingdom, South Korea, Surinam and Indonesia in 2019. She is a regular speaker at public lectures, and in interviews and panel sessions, most recently at the Nola Hatterman Institute in Suriname, the EYE Film Museum, the Casco Art Institute and De Appel.

Jury composition

The jury of the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art 2020 was chaired by Frits van Oostrom, Distinguished University Professor of Dutch Literature of the Middle Ages at Utrecht University (member and former President of the Academy). In addition, the jury consisted of Patricia Pisters, professor of film science at the University of Amsterdam (member of the Academy), Aernout Mik, visual artist and laureate of the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art 2002 (member of the Academy of Arts), Bart Rutten, director of Centraal Museum Utrecht and Elena Filipovic, director of Kunsthalle, Basel.

Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art 

Alfred Heineken established the prize that bears his name to recognise and encourage exceptionally talented artists. The Foundation awarded the prize for the first time in 1988 and every other year since then to an outstanding artist living and working in the Netherlands. The prize consists of a sculpture, a publication and/or exhibition (budgeted at EUR 50,000) and a cash prize of EUR 50,000. Previous laureates included Peter Struycken, Mark Manders, Barbara Visser, Job Koelewijn, Daan van Golden, Aernout Mik, Guido Geelen, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Yvonne Dröge Wendel and Erik van Lieshout.