Christmas season is the time when most people not only exchange gifts and send greetings, but also drink and say cheers. For some of us the second goes above the first, and here the problems begin. To address this, global brands, both alcohol and beverage ones, launch campaigns to promote moderate drinking. Recently, the soft-drink giant Coca-Cola rolled out the new round of its ‘Designated Driver’ initiative, and HEINEKEN started its new promotion of responsible alcohol consumption by launching a new extension of the ‘Open Your World’ global campaign of its flagship beer, Heineken. Under the new theme ‘Sunrise belongs to moderate drinkers’ unveiled this Christmas season, the brand is spreading the message of moderate drinking primarily on the web, via a range of platforms, including Heineken’s YouTube channel, Facebook fan page, Heineken.com and broadcast.

On the heels of the announcement of Facebook and HEINEKEN’s tie up, the flagship beer of the company revealed two festive applications on its fan page in the biggest social media platform (though, the major deal starts on January 1, 2012). The apps, ‘BeerFriender’ and ‘The Heineken Social Christmas Tree’ help people celebrate the winter holiday in a true social way like never before.

This Christmas Saatchi & Saatchi is giving an alternative kind of gift, which harnesses the creativity within the Network. We have invited musicians and bands working at Saatchi & Saatchi offices around the world, to create original songs for a Holiday album, as our offering to clients and friends globally. In keeping with the Saatchi & Saatchi philosophy of creating not copying culture, we are tapping into the abundance of talent within the Network, that exists outside of our day jobs.

Heineken and Facebook have partnered to work on digital campaigns for Heineken’s brands around the world. With the largest Heineken beer brand on Facebook that has over 4.6 million adult users, the beverage company aims to strengthen its popularity globally. Kingfisher and Dos Equis, two of the company’s other leading brands, are also in the top seven beer brands on Facebook.