Clearly some members of Heineken’s ad agency have been reading the social science literature as evidenced by this recent ad (video below), which has been all over my social feed, as well as having been written about in Vox, The Huffington Post, Fast Company, The Today Show, The Guardian, and many other places.  The ad has 3 sets of partisans who disagree on the hot button issues of climate change, feminism, and perceptions of those who are trans-gender do 2 things that conform to our 2 main recommendations – they cooperate in building a bar and they build a relationship by asking and revealing personal things about themselves.  These exercises mirror well-established research paradigms from research on minimal groups, realistic conflict theory, contact effects, and the fast friends procedure, but I think the ad works because these paradigms build on what most of us already know – that if we get to know people personally first, politics are secondary to the relationship we have built, and that revealing things about ourselves and working together are great ways to build such a relationship.

Please do watch the below video and share with your friends.

– Ravi Iyer