The cliché says women don’t like beer and beer ads. Astra, one of Germany’s best-known beer brands, wanted to challenge that. We developed the first beer advertising to directly talk to women and invite them to enjoy a free Astra. We used a classic illuminated billboard, integrated a camera and the latest in gender detection software and placed it directly next to a bar in Hamburg’s party district St. Pauli. Women who passed by were directly addressed by one of over 70 pre-shot video messages. If they went into the bar and spoke the magic words „Astra spoke to me.“ they got their free Astra beer.

In order for Astra to talk directly to women we developed the first digitally illuminated billboard, which used a camera combined with gender detection software. The poster was able to differentiate women from men. Thus one of 70 pre-shot video messages could be played directly to women in nearly all situations. Since we didn’t only want to get a message across, but also a good beer, we placed the poster directly next to a bar in an area highly frequented by women. The video message would then always include an invitation to the bar – and an Astra for free.

Thanks to this unique way of addressing a particular target group, the popularity of Astra amongst women rose dramatically. 3 out of 4 women invited to a free Astra had another one afterwards, increasing sales by 150%. The popularity of Astra also rose online: the “girl detection billboard” reached more then 3.7 million unique visitors and generated a PR value of more than 1.3 million EUR.