LePub creates Heineken music matching experience

The activation is part of Heineken’s Fans Have More Friends platform and is designed to identify people with similar musical tastes through smart bands attached to Heineken cans and glasses

LePub, together with its technology and innovation collective LeGarage, has created The Clinker, a Heineken experience at Rock in Rio Brazil 2026 that uses festivalgoers’ music preferences to encourage in-person connections.

The activation is part of Heineken’s Fans Have More Friends platform and is designed to identify people with similar musical tastes through smart bands attached to Heineken cans and glasses. When participating fans meet, the devices indicate whether their music preferences match, creating an opportunity to connect over a shared interest.

The Clinker turns music data into connections

The experience will feature hundreds of devices across Cidade do Rock, with an exclusive Heineken space located near the World Stage serving as its main hub. When participants find a match, they are invited to meet the person in front of them and share a Heineken.

The activation also feeds musical preference data into the festival experience. As matches occur, the strongest musical affinities can generate signals that influence the tracks played by the DJ, linking individual preferences with the wider festival atmosphere.

LeGarage applies technology to live interaction

Rather than using technology to direct attention toward screens, The Clinker uses data about music preferences as a prompt for face-to-face interaction. The concept builds on findings from Heineken’s Reset da Mesmice study, conducted with Box1824, which found that one in four Brazilians views festivals as an opportunity to connect with artists and discover music beyond recommendation algorithms.

The Clinker will be activated in Brazil for the first time at Rock in Rio, bringing the concept to one of the country’s major music festivals.

Heineken and Spotify bring back The Loudest Playlist

Alongside The Clinker, Heineken and Spotify will activate The Loudest Playlist at Cidade do Rock. The experience uses decibel meters and seismographs positioned near the World Stage to measure audience reactions during the festival.

The resulting data will feed into a Spotify playlist that changes throughout the event. Songs receiving stronger audience reactions will move higher in the playlist, creating a record of the festival based on the crowd’s response rather than recommendation algorithms.

Heineken links fandom with social connection

Heineken will also use data gathered during Rock in Rio to develop content and insights around the artists, music and fan communities generating the strongest reactions.

Williane Vieira, Brand Marketing Manager, Heineken Brazil: “Rock in Rio is a gathering of music, but it is also a gathering of people. Every edition shows us how fans create their own codes, make plans together, take over the city, and transform concerts into collective memories. In 2026, we want to strengthen this behavior even further through experiences like The Clinker, The Loudest Playlist and activations that connect Cidade do Rock with Rio de Janeiro. The ‘Fans Have More Friends’ campaign captures exactly this idea: when music brings people together, new connections happen naturally for Heineken in Brazil.”

Bruno Bertelli, Global CEO of LePub and CCO, LePub Worldwide: “Fandom gives strangers something incredibly valuable: an immediate reason to talk to each other. The Clinker takes something technology normally uses to connect us digitally preferences – and uses it to create connections in the real world – our tastes and instead. And that’s exactly what Fans Have More Friends is about: turning the things people already love into common ground for meeting someone new. The best outcome isn’t a match on a wristband. It’s two people raising a Heineken together afterwards”

The Clinker will be available throughout Rock in Rio Brazil 2026, while The Loudest Playlist will continue to evolve during the festival and will be available on Spotify.

www.theheinekencompany.com

www.le.pub

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