Stella Artois recruits David Beckham to reaffirm its premium positioning

Stella Artois, whose “Reassuringly Expensive” tagline helped to ignite the premiumization trend in beer starting in the 1990s, is recalibrating its luxury credentials. David Beckham stars in a global advertising platform debuting today called “Worth More.” The campaign acknowledges that consumers have changed the way they view premium products, demanding that brands justify their worth and not just their price, according to Tim Ovadia, global VP of marketing for Stella Artois, the Anheuser-Busch InBev-owned Belgian-born lager. A new ad shows Beckham experiencing a moment of private disgrace at a bar. It is Stella’s first campaign work from Gut Miami, which won the account in a review last year. Mother was the brand’s previous agency. Ryan Booth of division7 directed the new spot. For Stella, Beckham demonstrates that a night out with friends is worth more than a celebrity meetup. This is the kind of bargain that consumers are seeking from premium brands today, said Ovaida. The commercial is part of a year-long campaign including digital and out-of-home advertising from JKR London. Ad Age Leading Women Luncheon Join us Aug. 7 in New York as we recognize this year’s honorees Buy your ticket today Beckham, the soccer legend turned Nextflix star, has been busy in the ad world lately, starring in a live-filmed commercial for Lay’s and as a forgetful husband in Uber Eats’ recent Super Bowl ad. The agency Worldwide London introduced “Reassuringly Expensive” in the U.K. in 1992, helping Stella Artois succeed wildly there, and encouraging a succession of the brand’s corporate parents—Interbrew, InBev and finally AB InBev—to position Stella Artois as a global premium beer that was ready when consumers began seeking out high-end brands. “The ‘Reassuringly Expensive’ campaign was an iconic campaign that really established Stella Artois as the founder of the international premium segment around the world,” Ovadia said in an interview. “At the time, what defined premium was how much it cost. It was quite a ‘badge’ category, and the price of your product would help define whether customers saw it as premium.” Taking consumers’ minds off price might also seem to be a benefit in these inflationary times, but Ovadia has a different perspective. “Now, you have to justify why your product is worth more, you have to justify it in terms of its emotional value. And you have to justify it in terms of the ability of your product to live up to its claim—the product value,” Ovadia said. “You have to justify that worth.” Stella can “justify” its worth in two ways, Ovadia said. Research indicates consumers like the brand for its distinct taste, while valuing the time spent with their friends and family. “We sum this up under our new platform very simply as Stella Artois, ‘a taste worth more for moments that mean more,’” Ovadia said. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here ‘Pivotal moment’ Stella Artois spent $11 million in U.S. measured media in 2023, down from $13 million in 2022, according to Vivvix, including paid social from Pathmatics. Beer Marketer’s Insights estimates Stella shipped 2 million barrels in the U.S. last year. Circana, which measures retail outlet sales, showed Stella with a 6% U.S. sales decline last year, Beer Marketer’s Insights added. Stella sees itself as a rival of premium imports like Heineken, Corona and Modelo but isn’t technically an import—since 2021, it has been brewed domestically. And while Stella is looking up at the sales of those three, the U.S. is the brand’s largest market by revenue, Ovadia said. “We’re about to go big in the U.S.,” he asserted. “This is a pivotal moment where the brand is bringing on David Beckham as a global ambassador. I think we now have at our disposal the right platform and the right ambassador to make a significant impact amongst the big four premium beers in the U.S.” Globally, Stella rides platforms of food and tennis—it is a major sponsor of the French Open and Wimbledon events. “Worth More” is Stella’s first global campaign since Gut won the account but the two have worked together before. Gut Buenos Aires was behind the brand’s “Artois Probability” campaign that won the Creative Data Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last year. Read more about Gut Buenos Aires “We are humbled that Stella Artois chose Gut as its agency of record and partnered with us to create an insightful and modern brand platform for their global audiences,” Anselmo Ramos, founder and creative chairman of Gut, said in a statement, adding that there was a “layer of personal meaning,” to the assignment. “When I was a senior writer in 2006, I was lucky to work on the award-winning Stella Artois ‘Coupons’ campaign—it feels like a full circle,” Ramos said. “That same year my daughter Stella was born. Some say her name is not a coincidence, but I won’t confirm nor deny.”

Stella Artois recruits David Beckham to reaffirm its premium positioning

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