InBev launches campaign for new Stella Artois 4%
Oh la la, ce beer est très hot. Stella Artois’ new campaign is probably going to bring out the best franglais in the Brits. Emphasising a spurious French past, the ads will make many punters walk up to the bar and order a lower strength Stella by saying: “Bonjours le you. I voudrais a Stella quatre!” In October InBev UK unveiled a new TV, press and outdoor campaign to promote Stella Artois 4%. The lower-strength Stella Artois 4% was introduced to the off trade in August this year. A draught version is being rolled out in the on-trade from November.
The outdoor and press campaign will be set in the Riviera of the 1960s in an attempt to stress the brand’s smooth credentials and heritage. The 40-second TV commercial is shot in the 1960s French cinema style.
InBev is gearing up for the launch of the lower-strength Stella lager in a last-ditch attempt to shed the lager-lout image of Stella Artois and revive its falling sales. Insiders say that, if successful, the 4% variant will become the flagship brand with the 5.2 percent lager becoming a premium, super-strength extension.
The brewer has been desperate to move away from the moniker of "wife beater" that Stella Artois has been stuck with for years. It has already relaunched the brand as part of the Artois family, featuring the Peetermans Artois along with the bottled premium Artois Bock.
Last year, InBev’s admen scrapped the "Reassuringly Expensive" tagline and replaced it with "Pass On Something Good" to support the Artois family of beers.
InBev’s investment in Stella Artois comes at a time when beer sales in the UK are continuing to fall. In October this year, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) said drinkers’ concern about their finances were one reason for beer consumption to decline. Increased alcohol taxes were another reason for a sales slump equivalent to 1.8 million pints a day.
Overall sales from July to September 2008 fell by 7.2 percent – compared with the same period a year ago, the BBPA said.
The trend is now affecting supermarkets and off-licences as well pubs and clubs.
Beer sales supermarkets dropped 6 percent in the third quarter of 2008.
