Stella Artois held yesterday the finals of its annual World Draught Masters competition in Buenos Aires, Argentina to choose a winner. The competition is dedicated to the skill of pouring beer into glasses using the signature 9-step Pouring Ritual. Like at the 2010 competition finals in London, this year’s competitors from 25 countries came together to boast of their skills and determine who is the best beer master.
Stella Artois
Comparison stands behind any considered choice, and any confident global brand tends to provide its consumers with an opportunity to examine both the positive and negative sides of their products—and sometimes weigh its offerings against goods by other manufacturer. Sometimes, companies also step outside the product world and help compare lots of other things—sexes, automobiles, brothers, tastes, political parties, athletes and more—to help determine which of the two is better, stronger, messier, tastier, faster, more attractive, reliable, sportive, etc. In this overview, we won’t focus on serious ratings revealing carbon footprint or social impact, like Nike’s Environmental Apparel Design Tool, Timberland’s Eco Index or GoodWill’s rating—instead, as tribute to April Fool’s Day, which was celebrated last Friday, we will focus on humorous and tongue-in-cheek projects.
The story of close relationship between brands and cinematography started nearly at the same time as the cinema itself was born—in the beginning of the movie era, the big companies promoted their products though short clips which were screened before movies. Now it’s not that easy to tell for sure for which product the pioneer ad was created, but according to a range of sources (IMDB is one of them), the first filmed advertising for a today’s global brand was shot for Dewar’s Scotch Whisky (1897). Today, connections between filmmaking industry and brands go beyond this simple presence and include a lot of examples such as much discussed product placement, festival sponsorship and opening cinema clubs, cinema-related advertising campaigns, collaboration with filmmakers on commercials, and creating movies under brands’ supervision.
Last year, in support of the 63rd Annual Cannes Film Festival Stella Artois, the official sponsor of the event, was running a charming campaign revolving around ‘mysterious disappearance’ of Jacques d’Azur, the ‘King of Cannes’, under which they were on the lookout for a rightful heir of the man (and finally found one). This time, ahead of the 64th Festival de Cannes, Stella Artois is going to bring the international playboy back through cinematography, and so the brand is giving its fans a unique opportunity to star as Jacques d’Azur in a short film about his life.