MARKETING INNOVATION

Cheers! Here’s Heineken’s latest clever idea to keep us socialising

By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2025

The Flipper is an AI-powered phone-case that automatically flips a user’s phone face down when someone says “cheers”.

The battle against digital overload is real! Beer brand Heineken has become well known for its quirky marketing campaigns promoting the dying art of real people connecting with each other and having fun in the real world, rather than spending time on their smartphones.

The latest iteration of Heineken’s efforts to revive IRL (‘in real life’) interactions is The Flipper, an AI-powered phone-case prototype that automatically flips a user’s phone face down when the word “cheers” is spoken.

At that point, it’s time to kick back and relax with friends, enjoy a beer, make eye contact with humans and forget about the WhatsApp chatter and work email number 275 popping into your inbox.

The Flipper AI-powered phone case. Photo: Heineken

“The device is intended to keep people from being distracted by alerts on their phone while they are socialising,” the brand explains.

Heineken has, in the past, come up with several related innovations that were designed to suppress our digital-age obsession with screens.

It launched a Boring Phone, which came devoid of the features that make modern smartphones so distracting. This was followed by a Boring Mode app that turned any smartphone into a Boring Phone.

The company also created a phone-adjacent bottle opener that automatically shut down work apps as soon as it was used to open a beer bottle.

Better to be social in real life

The hashtag for the campaigns is #SocialOffSocials, which promotes the idea that its better to be social in real life than on social media.

“Smartphones and their array of social media apps are essential in our everyday lives, but the habit of scrolling through socials rather than having a good time in person is affecting the quality of our face-to-face interactions,” explains Nabil Nasser, Global Head of the Heineken Brand.

“Bars are some of the best places to socialise and make new connections, and we thought The Flipper is a fun way to encourage people to flip off their socials and demonstrate why being present with those around you is so important.”

Comments Simone Giertz, inventor of The Flipper: “It’s just a clever solution and a good reminder for me to not get distracted by social media when I’m trying to socialise.”

You can watch a YouTube video about The Flipper here.

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