Marvelous Marketing: Stella Artois

Let me tell you a little bit about my purchasing style.  I’m sitting here wrapped in the Charisma Faux Fur throw I bought at Costco.  I type this on a MacBook Pro, which sits atop a placemat from Target, which is on a black table from IKEA that I built myself.  To my right, a black mug is half-filled with my favorite coffee, Lavazza Qualita Rossa, which I buy in cans at Eataly in Flatiron.

What does this say about me?  I make purchases at a low-medium price point, but my tastes are fine.  I respond to words like “luxury” and “ultra soft.”

Now, let’s say I was offered a choice between wine and beer.  You would probably guess I’d choose wine, and you would be correct.

But lately, I have been almost willing to make an exception.  On TV and in passing the beer case at Duane Reade, Stella Artois just looks so pretty.  In fact, it’s so pretty that you forget it shares the same category as  DUDE!  BRO!  DUDE! brewskis like Bud Light, Keystone, etc.  The Anheuser-Busch Belgian beauty has been leveraging sophistication pretty hard lately in fully integrated terms.  The packaging and bottling, the ads, and the web content is all bound by inferences of french accents, strange European humor, the chalice, and crisp, clear champagne bubbles.  Anything more and it would be wearing pearls.

The smell of beer used to remind me of Metallica concerts… which also reminded me of cigarettes, tank tops, and pickup trucks with fake testicles hanging from the hatch.  Stella always seemed different to me, if only because of that sexy French name.  But their marketing team has been able to push this difference into a whole league of its own.  Now there’s a fancy beer at regular beer availability.  I’d love to know the effects of this campaign– did they bring new people to the beer market?  I also wonder if it is “beer enough” for the regular American beer demographic.

I’ve not yet bought the product, but next time I’m in a beer-only situation, this will surely be the first option to come to mind.  Well done, Stella!

– Carrie Knific