Episode 144 - Stella Artois “The Artois Probability” Ad Reviewed by VISA, Mediahub and Unilever
🍺 In this week’s episode, we’re examining what beer the revellers from paintings by Van Gogh, Manet, and Brueghel were really drinking in “The Artois Probability” ad created by Gut Buenos Aires and chosen by Contagious.
🎨 The clever use of data brings art and science together for this Stella Artois clip, but what consumer need is this ad answering? Is there more in it for the audience or is it just a really cool and imaginative case study? 🤔
Our experts Tatyana Kahl (Marketing Director, Activation and Usage, at VISA Europe), Catherine Chappell (Head of Biddable Performance at Mediahub UK), and Adrian O’Brien (Global Dove Masterbrand Equity Marketing Manager at Unilever) discuss whether this was a good use of data & creativity, or just a great way to win a prize at Cannes. Join them and tell us what you think!
Episode 144 - Stella Artois “The Artois Probability” Ad Reviewed by VISA, Mediahub and Unilever
Transcript is automatically generated, so not perfect, but you get the idea!
Tom Ollerton 0:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. This is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads.
Tom Ollerton 0:35
My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of the creative effectiveness platform, Automated Creative. And this week, we are brought to you as ever by Contagious, who have helped choose the ad this week. But before we see the ad, let's meet this week's guests.
Tatyana Kahl 0:48
My name is Tatyana Kahl. I'm Marketing Director for Activation and Usage in Visa Europe.
Catherine Chappell 0:54
Hi, everyone. I'm Cat Chappell. I head up Digital Platforms and Investment at Mediahub across EMEA and global.
Adrian O'Brien 1:00
Hi, everyone, I'm Adrien O'Brien, Senior Manager in the Global Dove Equity Team in Unilever.
Tom Ollerton 1:05
What a panel... As ever, very high expectations of the critique this week. But let's see this week's ad.
Tom Ollerton 3:03
Marks out of five for how amazing this is. One, two, three... A two, a three, and a three. Right... Tatyana, what was your first thoughts when you saw that the first time?
Tatyana Kahl 3:14
Interesting idea for outdoor campaign. Definitely out of the box thinking. Nice kind of to bring the arts into that. But then I was struggling to understand what's the business need or consumer need they're trying to address. So I did a bit of research about the campaign and it seems that the way it's originated was the idea to use the data, right? And this campaign won an award at Cannes. My understanding is that it could be a good way to differentiate the brand to bring the attention. But what's really wanted, they achieved with it, and what they achieved, kind of, from this video, I couldn't get that out.
Catherine Chappell 3:47
I mean, it was a creative use of data. How that data came about, I think could be questionable sometimes. But I think the one thing that stood out for me was the integration between digital, out-of-home and I think that's always a nice extension for any campaign. I think the main thing that I really took away from it is the cultural aspect of it and for me is about how they've imprinted themselves into hundreds and thousands of years, of centuries, and they're saying that they were, they were the first essentially, and they're kind of showcasing that to their consumers and audience that they've been around for centuries. And so that you get a bit of kudos from that.
Adrian O'Brien 4:26
I think it's a cool idea. It's a nice way to quite literally bring science and art together. It's bringing AI and an interesting use of it. What is in it for the consumers? What is in it? Why is this interesting? And I sort of feel like I've watched half of a case study and I'm kind of still waiting to see where they take it rather than the full story at this stage.
Catherine Chappell 4:46
It felt to me halfway through that it was a video that you're watching in a museum. So from an advertising point of view, it took me back to, do I really want to be watching this? This is like I'm walking around a museum.
Adrian O'Brien 4:56
It's interesting if you're, if you're interested in history or more explicitly art history, but I was a bit like, where are we going with this? What, what's the point of all this?
Tatyana Kahl 5:05
I think it has a great potential to differentiate. "We are the first, we are the history." But the question still remains, so what if you are the oldest beer in the market? Does that mean you are the best or why should I prefer this one versus the other one? One thought I had maybe they're trying to differentiate themselves versus the newly popping up craft beer and decide this is why we are different and despite its own age.
Adrian O'Brien 5:26
I sort of feel that this is a concept which come from a brief of work out how to do something with AI rather than a business objective or a consumer problem. It started from a how do we do something to leverage data. And if I think about at Cannes, another award winner on data, something like the Cadbury concept with the small businesses. I have a similar question there. So what's in it for the brand? But at least that offers utility to people all over the country and to consumers. This doesn't offer utility and it's not entertaining. That's why I sort of feel like it's gone half way to building this story about heritage. And then in a beer-y culture, I kind of expect them to then start putting cans of Stella in every other advert... every other painting or kind of trying to be funny somehow but they've stopped short of that activation element, so it ends up just being, look what we can do with data, which doesn't really touch the sides, for me.
Catherine Chappell 6:20
It would be interesting to find out kind of what the methodology was behind the out-of-home placements that they had, because was there any art behind the audience work that they were looking that, were they tapping into a tourist audience that were visiting museums, etc. around those areas. So it would have been good to have had some insight into that as well.
Tatyana Kahl 6:37
I was stalking some of the channels from Stella Artois, right? So this campaign took place in Argentina, in Buenos Aires, where they took, you know, one of the museums and that's great, and that's exactly what I was looking like, does it have the legs? Does it lead? And what's the continuation of that? Once you start to kind of use this as a hook but bring it more into cultural relevance in our days with some humor or some aspects of daily life, how it brings into that, that would be fun. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of that. So it's a good attempt. It really requires sustained, you know, longer on this topic, stay longer on the idea of data or... So what does it tell us? Which of the data of today's life can make the relevance?
Adrian O'Brien 7:16
And none of this relies on AI. You know, they could have done this with six paintings or even beyond art. They could have said it was Van Gogh's favorite beer. It was Einstein's favorite beer, blah blah blah. We are a brand of heritage across Europe. You know, we're trusted by luminaries through the generations. You don't need AI for that. You could have done that with half a dozen examples.
Catherine Chappell 7:40
I think it's not even about associating, whether it is a Stella Artois or any other beer. I think it's positioning themselves that if there's a beer in the painting, it's probably likely to be a Stella. So I think that rather than the actual numbers, it's probably going to be the messaging that they're trying to land. This is kind of the first of influencer, social proofing, kind of trying to build trust and authority, but they could have done it in a lot simpler and more effective way that would have been to the masses.
Tom Ollerton 8:09
So what would you have done to improve this?
Tatyana Kahl 8:11
If you want to improve it as a pitch video, there were too little results, right? They said they responded for a 40% on the engagement. Engagement versus previous campaign, engagement over objective... So I think you really need to say what you achieved with that. But they won already so it worked well for them. In terms of as outdoor campaign, I would really try to bring it to the social media channels and to see how, what people can do with that throughout, you know, on the creatives and see how they can make a modern churn with that. Yes, it's a Belgium Beer. It's a great history that might been there, but what it means for our days today.
Tom Ollerton 8:45
There's brands that can afford to do this kind of thing and there's brands that can't, right? But if you are a Stella that can do six of these activation, 12 of these activations in a 12-month period, then does it really matter if they're going to try and land this kind of European history connotation?
Adrian O'Brien 9:00
When you do that, though, it's because you do these things that have no link to sales activation or no link to, you know, distribution or anything. But they say something about your brand and you say the same message, year after year after year in different verticals. I don't really feel this is telling me something about Stella that I recognize. It doesn't feel like it's kind of reinforcing their brand positioning. You know, I'm not really sure what it's saying.
Tom Ollerton 9:27
Would you sign off this campaign, not the video, this campaign in its current form? On the count of three, yes or no? One, two, three... And... Well, there you have it, Tatyana, Cat, Adrian, thank you so much. We'll see you all next week.
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