The Dutch brewer will announce today that it is calling time on next year’s £6.5 million television advertising budget in Britain and switching the money into sport sponsorship and point-of-sale promotions.

The decision means that the recently ended run of ads featuring Ray Liotta, star of the film Goodfellas, will be Heineken’s last for the foreseeable future — more than 30 years after the lager first appeared on British television with the tagline “Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach”.

The move will be seen as a new blow to the £3.5 billion television advertising market as the cost- effectiveness of traditional advertising breaks on commercial television channels is questioned increasingly.

Rob Marijnen, managing director of Heineken UK, said that a number of factors had prompted it to put its money elsewhere, including the rising cost of buying airtime and the advent of Sky Plus, which enables viewers to skip ads.

“The enormously cluttered environment in TV ads makes it difficult to make standout ads,” he said. “It’s also very expensive and it’s questionable as to its effectiveness.”

Mr Marijnen said that growing “media fragmentation” meant it was proving increasingly difficult to reach its core target market of 18 to 26 year olds in an effective way through television.

He added: “I’m not saying it’s farewell to TV for ever. We will look at it again, but for the time being we need to look at other avenues, in particular by creating more visibility for the brand at the point of purchase.”

He pointed out that Heineken was not abandoning TV entirely, because its sponsorship of football’s European Champions League meant that it would still run “break bumpers” at the beginning and end of commercial breaks.

Mr Marijnen said it was important for Heineken to continue investing heavily in marketing following the controversial decision in 2003 to scrap its Heineken Cold Filtered brand and replace it with the premium-strength Heineken brand.

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