When the job is to promote Stella, the brand’s beer chalice plays a central role. For the “Buy A Lady A Drink” campaign, Stella created limited edition chalices, the purchase of which provides 5 years of clean drinking water.

At the same time, we were considering finding a spokeswoman who could help promote the brand’s Water.org fundraising efforts.

The unique designs of the chalices inspired the final creative idea: rather than think of these elements separately, what if we could unite them? How could we put the woman and the chalice together in an unexpected way?

That’s how the Oscar dress idea was born. We’d literally wrap the woman in one of the special Water.org chalice designs. Then we’d put them both where everyone would see them – the Oscars. When the wearer is asked, “Who are you wearing,” we’d have an answer that no one could miss.

Christian Siriano is a celebrity dress designer known for innovative designs and boundary-pushing silhouettes. We asked Christian to design a gown inspired by the beautiful chalices.

The special edition chalices were designed to reflect the local cultures of the countries supported by Water.org. The chalices were etched and had a lot of radial lines. Those radial lines from the chalice became the curves on the dress to accentuate the bust and hips.

Christian originally sketched three designs, and he and Maria chose a final design that would capture attention on the red carpet. The dress reflected both the culture of the countries in need and the Stella chalice.

The final dress was white with silver beading that was hand-sewn. It was the perfect rendition of a chalice that became a woman.

The dress generated a 4% increase in awareness and a 1,150% increase in search volume on Oscar Sunday.

Stella Artois saw a 25% increase in overall chalice sales in only 48 hours. 10,000 special chalices were sold in this same two-day period, meaning 10,000 women were each provided with 5 years of clean drinking water as a result of Buy A Lady A Drink’s Oscar activation alone.

Finally, in addition to proceeds from the chalice sales, we auctioned the dress on charitybuzz.com, a high-profile auction website. All proceeds from the sale of the dress went to Water.org.