Heineken discloses the reason for choosing Verstappen as ambassador

Heineken representative Bram Westenbrink has revealed the reason why the Dutch beer company has chosen three-time world champion Max Verstappen as its ambassador.

Heineken has been a global partner of Formula One since 2016, and last year, the sport announced a five-year contract extension with the Dutch beer brand.

In 2023, the current world champion, Max Verstappen was also been announced as Heineken's ambassador to help encourage responsible consumption, through a series of sponsorship activations including the ongoing 'When You Drive, Never Drink' campaign

Speaking during Viaplay’s 'Off the Beaten Track' documentary, Heineken representative, Bram Westenbrink revealed that a personal sponsorship with Verstappen was a deviation from their typical sponsorship approach which the Dutch beer company has pursued in the past.

“What we normally do is only sponsor competitions, like the Champions League or F1,” said Westenbrink.But in the situation of Max, we were looking for an ambassador for 0.0. But what’s also really important, Max is always extremely clear.

"You always know what he stands for. So it all came together and that’s why we said: ‘Okay, this is the reason why we should change our internal policy and go for a sponsorship with Max.'”

“Red Bull was talking with a competitor of ours,” Westenbrink confirmed, “but when we heard it was really serious, we said: ‘This cannot happen!’”

“Because if a competitor closes a deal with Red Bull, we cannot have a deal with Max. We basically had to act in a weekend, extremely fast, and normally these things take very long.”

“But then you have to go to put the puzzle together with Red Bull Racing’s interest, Heineken’s interest, and of course the interest of Max, to broker a deal that everyone is happy with," concluded Westenbrink.