Heineken’s CMO recently articulated something most brands still miss: don’t use fandom as a targeting demographic, but as a distribution mechanism. The result: “Fans Have More Friends” uses the passion strangers already share as the connective tissue. Two people wearing the same jersey at a bar don’t need an icebreaker. Heineken just decided to be the thing in their hands when that connection happens.

This is the harder version of experiential marketing. Not a logo on a step-and-repeat, but understanding that a fan’s anticipation before the match, their reaction during it, and their retelling of it after, are all separate creative windows. Coachella and the US Open aren’t sponsorship placements in this model, they’re story arcs with multiple entry points for the brand to earn a place, not rent one.

The discipline underneath all of it is restraint. Alison Payne’s point about strategy being defined by what you refuse to do applies directly here. A brand chasing every trend dilutes its footage into noise. A brand that identifies one real human behavior, fandom creates friendship, and builds everything around that insight, gets a platform instead of a campaign.

Raw footage from a match-day activation means nothing without a structure that finds this insight and holds onto it. The story isn’t the logo. The cut is.