The gang of four — Andy Thomas, Luis Duran, Ken Kunze and Willem van der Hoeven — sat around a table and listened to the pitch by Euro RSCG. The marketing firm had this idea for Heineken-owned Dos Equis, previously marketed as a Mexican beer for young people. But their idea didn’t rely on Mexican culture. Or young people. Rather, it was an old man who admits that he doesn’t always drink beer. Thomas, then the president and CEO of Heineken USA (he’s now the xpresi-
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dent of commercial operations for the Craft Brew Alliance), and Duran, then the VP of business development in the United States for FEMSA, were skeptical about the idea. How would this old man deliver a message to young consumers? Does he really need to say that he doesn’t always drink beer? But Kunze, then the CMO of Heineken, and van der Hoeven, then the