How purpose-led Heaps Normal is using the play mindset to go mainstream

When we started Heaps Normal, we didn’t really look before we cannon-balled into the purpose pool. We exist to change the drinking culture, but like a lot of people reading this, we care about contributing to other challenges in our world and see business as a vehicle for positive change. As we dived deeper, we discovered hidden challenges and it became clear that doing purpose properly costs a lot of time and money — two things that are scarce in small businesses. 

When we think about purpose-led businesses that have gone ‘mainstream’, one of the first names that come to mind is Patagonia and the grand acts it has made synonymous with what positive impact looks like today. It’s hard to fault Patagonia for this, but, because of its sheer scale and reach, smaller businesses are often left in Patagonia’s wake wondering how their own purpose-led missions can ever stack up. 

As the engine room of our economy, small businesses have the power to drive incremental change in how we consume, think, connect and create on a daily basis. They have real power to be a force for good and for change. Equally, small businesses – especially those that are built around a purpose-driven mission – are more vulnerable to criticism, which stifles progress and creates an environment where they feel forced to stick to what’s ‘safe’. Safe ideas with safe results. But ‘safe’ ideas are boring. And who has ever been moved to take action, change their behaviour or think differently as a result of a boring idea? 

Perhaps a better way to ask that question is by channeling the spirit of anarchist Emma Goldman: who wants to be part of any revolution where there isn’t dancing? 

Research has discovered it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain – unless it’s done with play, in which case it only takes 10-20 repetitions. For small businesses to take their purpose into the mainstream, they must let go of the boring, safe middle and embrace play as a guiding principle. 

In the words of Louisa Ziane from Toast Ale, one of the first B Corps to certify in the UK: “To change the world, you’ve got to throw a better party than those destroying it”. 

Telling better stories 

We started Heaps Normal to change drinking culture. We’d come from backgrounds that had exposed us to the serious downsides of alcohol as well as the serious way non-alcoholic beer was marketed to consumers, so we knew that to have any chance of following through on our mission we had to think a little differently. We had to tell a better story. 

A normal (but seriously unplayful approach) to introducing a new non-alcoholic beer to the market might lean into a public health messaging strategy by focusing on the harms associated with alcohol. While the intentions behind that strategy might be noble, the effect is that anyone who isn’t ready to be totally sober switches off. It makes them uncomfortable and promotes feelings of shame and alienation.

This is why you’ll never hear Heaps Normal preaching about how much alcohol is or is not right for you. We don’t believe booze is the devil. We love beer but wanted to cut back a little, so we made a non-alcoholic beer that tastes just as good. That’s the extent of how much we’ll talk about booze. And that’s why, at this year’s GABS Craft Beer and Wine Festival, we set up a 70s-style lounge room where anyone could stop in for a game of Keepy Uppy while sipping on one of our beers. It’s also why, to help launch our latest limited-edition beer, the Tough Stuff Shandy, we created a short film that made us laugh about all the things that feel tough right now. Because play creates a space for new conversations and stories to take shape – especially around themes that are complex, like our relationship with alcohol. 

We’re far from the first to use play to tell better stories to disrupt the norm. Liquid Death, Who Gives A Crap, OK Cupid and even the Barefoot Investor are all examples of brands that have leaned on play to change habits, create conversations and capture hearts and minds. 

Establishing new rituals 

One of my dear friends, Tommy Crawford (from an agency of mischief makers called Dancing Fox) said that play and creativity are inextricably linked. Our imagination is the most powerful tool we have. And play can act like a key that unlocks the door to our imagination. 

Being a play-led business means experimenting, embracing the values of your community, and stretching outside your core business. We produce and sell non-alcoholic beer. But from day one, we’ve put most of our energy into stuff beyond the act of making beer alone. A lot of this energy has been channeled into creating new rituals – new rituals that help unlock the door for us to reimagine what mindful drinking looks like. 

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In the flywheel of change, new rituals follow on as a result of telling new and better stories. We believed that, by creating a non-alcoholic beer that wasn’t associated with shame or judgment, we’d give people the opportunity to make decisions that are right for them – be that taking a four-pack of full-strengths and a four-pack of Heaps Normals to their mate’s BBQ or drinking a non-alc beer for the first knock-off. 

Creating new rituals doesn’t always pan out how you plan. In our mission to create playful new rituals that speak to our purpose, we didn’t expect a charity foundation that exists to have a positive impact on drinking culture to take umbrage with us. But, in our experience, it’s always been worth it. In our latest ‘Normal July’ campaign – where we call on everyone to just do their best when it comes to cutting back on booze during July – we disarmed critics by having a laugh at ourselves and giving people permission to laugh at themselves too. 

New rituals take hold when they’re formed under relatable, human circumstances. And that’s also true of the rituals small businesses adopt internally in a bid to create change. By asking what you as a team are genuinely passionate about, the follow-through becomes easier and more fun, too. As a small business ourselves, we knew that grassroots causes are what excited us most, so we made a commitment to donating 2% of our revenue to them. Since 2020, we’ve donated just shy of half a million dollars to environmental and social causes.

Embedding cultural codes 

Better stories lead to new rituals and, over time, those rituals lead to new cultural codes. It’s at this point that purpose has a shot at entering the mainstream. In our case, a play mindset has allowed us to cultivate cultural codes in obviously playful ways, like partnering with the Deniliquin Dictionary to create fun, new words for non-alcoholic beer that arm people with the language to reference a changing culture. 

In other cases, a play mindset has allowed us to take a more serious approach to contributing to new cultural codes. 

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Play doesn’t mean trivialising an important issue; it’s an invitation to approach things with a mindset that values curiosity and flexibility. In some cases, our collective future depends on this approach. This is why we mobilised voters in the lead-up to the last federal election by bringing small businesses together to help make climate the number one election issue through This Is Not Normal. The effect was to bring strong voices and community leaders together around a common language. 

It’s also why we are a founding partner of We Are Warriors – an indigenous social enterprise led by rapper Nooky that shines a light on Indigenous role models, elevating their success stories and showing the next generation there are no limits. 

These are serious topics. But seriously important outcomes call for serious play. Let’s take the work seriously, not ourselves.

Andy Miller is the CEO and co-founder of Heaps Normal.