Stella Artois is part of a Belgian brewing tradition dating back to 1366. Stella is a blonde pilsner that when paired with food, deliciously unlocks new flavors. While it is the number one Belgian beer in the world, Stella Artois trails Heineken in the US as the top European lager-style beer.

Historically, Stella has been perceived as a beer for celebratory meal occasions. However, this is a much smaller, less frequent opportunity in beer. The biggest opportunity is social/everyday meals which account for nearly 25% of total beer occasions and is where Heineken grabs more volume. Stella also has a relevancy issue, with consumers calling out Stella Artois for its "old", "sophisticated", and "unattainable" brand perception.

To gain ground on Heineken, our opportunity was to position Stella in a modern, social/everyday meal occasion and build cultural relevance among young adult beer drinkers, increasing consideration and purchase intent.

Today we’re more connected than ever, yet feel more disconnected. Our phones and devices are always within reach, full of easy-to-consume content, distracting us from real-life moments.

This makes it even more important that we prioritize spending time with others. Research shows that the more often people eat and drink with others, the more likely they are to be happy and satisfied with their lives. Communal eating/drinking increases well-being and enhances feelings of closeness.

So when it comes to authentic connections, there's no substitute for the HUMAN CHEMISTRY that happens over a GOOD BEER AND A MEAL. This insight fed our strategy.

We needed to place Stella in a modern, social/everyday meal food context. Our idea was to pair Stella Artois with The Bear, a show praised for its authentic representation of life in a restaurant kitchen and the perfect pairing for Stella in both its content and cultural clout.

Our strategy was to bring Stella’s “human chemistry” to life:

• Creating meaning between Stella Artois and social/everyday meal occasions

• Communicating cultural relevance in a modern way

• Building the brand's image as premium, yet accessible

We knew that the younger, culturally savvy audience we were after was passionate about entertainment – and avoiding advertising. But traditional product placement wasn’t going to be enough. To solidify Stella Artois as a modern and relevant brand, we needed to design a more modern way of integrating into content that would allow us to reach ad-avoiders, and to authentically connect with our drinkers in entertainment and in today’s premium food context.

We negotiated Stella Artois to be the exclusive beer sponsor of The Bear, creating a 360-degree product and storyline integration. Our approach incorporated both active and passive product placement, surrounding custom content, social amplification, co-branded trade activations, and experiential extensions.

We created an innovative, cross-platform, series-long ecosystem to engage our audience:

In-show Integration. Mixing active placements (characters engaging with/drinking Stella) and passive placements (highly visible signage) we delivered four Stella Artois appearances in pivotal show moments.

Custom Content. We created content with famed chef Roy Choi and show culinary producer Coco Storer, offering fans a look behind-the-scenes through the eyes of a chef. These 60-second ads aired on Hulu with social amplification across FX’s Facebook/Instagram handles.

eCommerce. We brought The Bear to Instacart encouraging shoppers to purchase Stella, for an ultimate watch-party meal pairing.

Pop-up Event. This 2-night experience brought our audience and influencers a taste of The Bear, Stella and the chaotic world of “The Beef” restaurant, featuring food inspired by the show, giveaways and branded arcade games.

Pop-up Promotion. With Stella-branded arcade game activations across 5 Chicago bars, fans could win a one-of-a-kind dinner reservation to our event.

By biting into the world of The Bear we redefined Stella’s identity as a modern and relevant brand.

The campaign delivered a +3 ppt lift in Brand Consideration and Purchase Intent, demonstrating increased relevance for Stella Artois among our audience and generating business growth momentum to challenge Heineken.

Our integrations & custom content delivered +45 ppt lift in Sponsorship Association and The Bear x Stella led to a +3.4 lift in Brand Awareness and Ad Recall.

Looking at eCommerce, Stella Artois’ The Bear Instacart storefront takeover banner generated more clicks than any other AB InBev storefront banner in 2023.

This effort delivered the highest search banner ROAS of any AB brand across summer 2023.

Earned PR totaled 177M Impressions across 14 Placements.

Total paid media impressions of 113M were +14% over benchmark.

Given its success, Stella is working to expand the partnership with Hulu and The Bear for Season 3!