Campaign: The Artois Probability
Brand: Stella Artois Beer
Agency: GUT, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Why the campaign rocks:
Argentinian agencies are known to hit the ball out of the park consistently, but this time GUT managed to hit the ball into the flippin’ moon orbit. Stella Artois is an old Belgian beer, its first brewery opened back in 1326. Hence the idea is this: if Europe has been enjoying Stella Artois for the last 600 years, people drinking beer in any European artwork at this time, are probably enjoying Stella Artois. So GUT developed an algorithm that analysed paintings by Old Masters where people are drinking alcohol. And based on variables such as the year of painting, place, the type of glass, the colour of the liquid, the distance between the artist and the original brewery, Artois’ distribution coverage in the year of the painting and potential competitors, they came up with a number – the probability that it was a Stella Artois. In one fell swoop, GUT and Stella Artois managed to insinuate that Manet, Van Gogh and all other great European masters were ‘probably’ endorsing Stella for the last 600 years.
It’s a campaign that gave currency to heritage, created dissonance through the juxtaposition of data and fine art and tacitly implied ‘celebrity endorsement’ from the art world.