When advertising campaigns try to make political or topical statements, it’s often way off the mark – and usually as offensive as it is transparent in its bandwagon-jumping of serious issues in order to flog us fizzy drinks and shoes.

But when these brands get it right, they get it right – and this new beer advert does a pretty good job of it.

Titled ‘Worlds Apart’ An Experiment, Heineken’s short film (which you can watch in full below) shows three pairs of strangers taking part in various tasks: building an unknown piece of furniture; asking each other questions; describing themselves in five words.

Viewers see how each pair is made up of people with dramatically opposing views on feminism, climate change and trans rights. However the couples don’t know anything about each other ahead of the tasks.

After working together to build what turns out to be a bar, and having got to know a little more about each other via the questions, the pairs then watch short clips which reveal their true stances and are asked to make a decision: to walk out of the room or to stay and talk to someone whose political and social views probably upset and anger them.

Watch the video below:

The sentiment is clear: once you know someone as a person, however slightly, it’s difficult to dismiss them entirely simply because their opinions don’t align with your own. Tl;dr it’s better to talk.

Heineken describes the clip, part of its new #openyourworld campaign, as “Two strangers, divided by their beliefs, meet for the first time. Each knows nothing about the other or what the experiment will involve.

“Will they prove that there's more that unites us than divides us?”

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The Youtube video has already clocked up millions of views.

Though at first glance it might appear the participants are actors, given how conveniently perfect the conversations are and how immediately open each person is to having their strong views challenged, Heineken says there’s no fakery involved, writing on Twitter: “Can confirm that there's no acting, they are real people having real conversations”.

While, of course, it almost goes without saying that adverts like these are obviously still trying to make you buy their product (though while bad campaigns might make you swerve a brand, it’s debateable whether good ones make you choose one beer over another), we’d much rather have well-made ads projecting something positive into the world than not.

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Image: Heineken