As part of Heineken’s partnership with Coachella, the brewer has created a smartband called The Clinker, which wraps around beer cans and glasses to connect with other bands when they are knocked together.
The bands will be handed out at Coachella (which starts on 10 April) on a first-come, first-serve basis, and must first be synced with a user’s Spotify and Google accounts. Users tap their glasses or beer cans together, and the bands connect. If the users have compatible taste in music, they light up and then prompts the two users to connect on social media.
We contacted Heineken to ask how many of the bands would be available, but were only told that the number was ‘limited’, making it unclear how many will actually be using the Clinkers or if the stunt is primarily intended to garner press attention.
Nabil Nasser, global head of the Heineken brand, said: ‘The Clinker makes it easier to start a conversation, enabling music fans to turn a simple ‘cheers’ into a conversation starter and a new connection that can extend beyond the festival field.’
The activation was developed by LePub Milan, LePub Amsterdam and LePub New York (via its tech arm LeGarage). It follows the January launch of Heineken’s Fans Have More Friends platform, which brings together Heineken’s event sponsorships under one umbrella.
‘At a time when people seek more real-world connection, Heineken champions socialising in a way that’s authentic to who we are,’ said Dolf van den Brink, Heineken’s outgoing CEO, during the company’s Q4 2025 earnings call in February.
Van den Brink is expected to step down from his role on 31 May, and his departure comes as people are drinking less beer. In 2025, Heineken’s volume sales in the Americas and Europe declined 3%.
In March, Heineken’s CFO, Harold Broek, told the audience at UBS’ Global Consumer and Retail conference that, in Europe in particular, one of the company’s priorities was to ‘invest in category growth’ and get more people drinking beer, and that events sponsorship played a key role in this strategy.
The bands have the potential to get more people posting on social media, showing their new connections and talking about the unusual tech. This could boost Heineken’s appearances in posts about the already social-media-friendly festival.
