The term growth hacking will be familiar to those in the startup world, but it’s usually less applicable to large businesses. Not so for Heineken’s Matt Rix though, whose ‘Shiny New Object’ is “growth hacking with an agile mindset”. 

Matt’s view is that agile growth hacking can be a better approach than traditional planning – instead of setting out a specific plan, brands can take the approach of “we know where we want to get to, we’ll put our best people on it, they’ll test, they will iterate, and they will do the best they can to get to the result”.

This test and learn approach is one that Heineken adopts. Matt talks about a pre-Covid project to drive footfall in pubs, where the brand ran iterative tests, constantly improving the way they bought media and produced creative. To start off, they spent 20% of their media budget testing, then the next 80% on delivery. The best performing part of the delivery became the baseline for the next test, which meant the baseline constantly moved up. It proved very effective.

Matt’s not just a data geek though – to start with, he has an intriguing entry path to the marketing industry. First, booking bands and promoting club nights. Next, running his own successful pub, before getting snatched up by Heineken.

For more on all this, as well as why Matt thinks acting on advice from others should take a back seat to trusting your gut, check out the podcast in full here.

Subscribe to the Shiny New Object Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud.

Tom Ollerton is Founder of Automated Creative.