The Flow festival ends its marketing cooperation with Heineken due to the brand’s ties to Russia. “We could have reacted earlier,” says the festival’s artistic director Tuomas Kallio to HS.
Flow festival dissolves the marketing cooperation with the Heineken brand, says the artistic director of the festival Tuomas Kallio HS:lle
Heineken Silver beer was the main beverage partner of this weekend’s music festival.
Dutch beverage giant Heineken still operates in Russia, which is waging a war of aggression in Ukraine. Many foreign companies withdrew from Russia as soon as the war started.
Heineken also announced that it will soon withdraw from Russia, but continues to operate there.
The main partner of the Flow festival is Hartwall, whose product portfolio includes Heineken.
Dutch giant Heineken previously owned Hartwall, but sold it in 2013 to Danish Royal Unibrew.
Rock says that Heineken has previously been known as a responsible beer brand. Heineken has also been Flow’s partner before, albeit more than ten years ago. In recent years, Lapin Kulta has been a partner. This year, it was decided to change the drinking partner to Heineken Silver, which has a low alcohol content.
Kallio says that the Russian connections were reviewed together with Hartwall and Heineken in March of this year. At that time, Heineken had precise plans for leaving Russia.
“However, the truth is that they are still there as a company, even though the Heineken brand is no longer sold there.”
Heineken stopped selling its own beer brand in Russia, but still sells its other brands there. The company has also launched new brands in Russia since the start of the war.
Rock says that the Flow festival has decided to end the marketing cooperation with Heineken. They change the name of the Heineken Silver stage and remove all Heineken marketing material from their website and event area.
According to Kallio, both Flow and Hartwall believed that Heineken’s exit from Russia would be successful within the company’s promised schedule.
“Maybe we were too confident. We could have reacted earlier, but this is where we are now and this is how we act,” says Kallio.
Heineken won praise after being among the first major brewers to announce they were leaving Russia after the country invaded Ukraine. However, the thanks have turned into criticism when the promised things have not happened.
Instead, the company has hired new employees in Russia and launched new brands to replace discontinued ones.
The company itself says that it has taken steps to keep its business in Russia profitable so that it could sell the company and thus protect its employees. The company says it has not accepted any winnings made in Russia since the start of the war.
Yale University professor who follows companies doing business in Russia Jeff Sonnenfeld said the news agency CNNthat Western companies still operating in Russia are making a profit there.
Also a two-time Formula 1 world champion Mika Hakkinen has acted as the advertising face of Heineken. He last posted in mid-June A beer company’s advertising video on his Instagram accountin which he himself appears.