Login here! 
Written by In scenes reminiscent of the cigarette industry in the 1970′s Heineken exec Alexis Nasard proudly claimed that beer is healthy for you
“There is everything which is healthy about beer!” Alexis Nasard said in response to a question posed to him by Steve Sedgwick on the CNBC morning show.
When pressed he continued saying, “Beer is much less calories than many things you can think about,”
“Beer already has less calories than a glass of milk, that’s probably one thing you didn’t know,”
“The other thing is also is that beer is one of the few drinks which actually, is purely natural; it’s water, hops, barley and yeast, which is quite healthy,” he added.
CNBC reports that Jack Edmonds, a Harley Street Doctor said in a report to the UK Beer Education Trust that “Beer is around 95 percent water, contains very few free sugars to convert into fat, which gives it a low glycaemic load, and has a relatively low level of alcohol (ethanol) per volume. This all means that it is less fattening than spirits or wine,”
“It is not beer that makes you fat but the lifestyle and eating habits which may go along with beer drinking.”
“However this doesn’t mean we can all rush out and drink huge amounts of beer… All the benefits of beer — health, social and psychological — are only enjoyed when beer is drunk in moderation and preferably with a low alcohol content.”
In the interview Nasard also discussed Heineken’s marketing strategy and how they moved away from the fat beer joke format to a platform with a more artistic style.
You want to keep it cool, but you also want to keep it surprising. What we want is to come with surprising messages, which get people saying ‘What are they doing?
We were one of the first brewers that tried to move away from the ‘big fat beer’ jokes, creating advertising that is unisex, complex and has an artistic dimension.
He cited the brands product placement in the latest James Bond movie “Skyfall” as an example of the brand surprise policy which takes the British spy away from his traditional vodka martini, shaken not stirred’ to a cold Heineken.
“Heineken’s position is to be a ‘man of the world’ and James Bond is the quintessential man of the world, and it is universal because in every man lies a little James Bond.”
So will you be drinking your beer with more confidence?
I get the feeling that they are turning their attention to the female market…
