Heineken's New Ad Shows You How To Really Set Aside Your Differences

When brands get political, things can get a little sticky, as we've learned from Pepsi's depiction of the Black Lives Matter movement in its "Live for Now" ad featuring Kendall Jenner. However, Heineken has released its newest ad showing that people can really set aside their differences, especially over a beer, Upworthy reported.

For the ad, Heineken had three pairs of people get to know each other through team-building exercises, but here's the catch: Each pair had polar-opposite views on issues including climate change, feminism, and transgender rights. According to the company, each person was unaware of their differences until "short films" were played in which each person expressed their opinions. After the video, each person had the option to leave or sit down and discuss their differences over a beer.

In one suspenseful moment, a man with strong opinions on transgender issues is paired with a transgender woman. The man walks away, but quickly returns and admits, "I've been brought up in a way where everything is black and white, but life isn't back and white." At the end of the ad, the man says he wants to keep in touch.

What Heineken did differently than Pepsi was show the flood of human emotions that can occur when faced with people who have strong opposing opinions than their own. In the end, it was a beer commercial, but the brand was able to hit the nail on the head when it comes to discussing civil rights. According to a 2016 study in Science, a brief conversation can be one of the easiest ways to help someone understand an opposing viewpoint, particularly when it comes to LGBT issues, New York Magazine reported.