Stella Artois is a beer most (if not all) Canadian LDAs have heard of. It also sits within a growing category: as consumers are ‘trading up’, Premiumization has become a dominant trend. Consumers are looking for higher quality, and they’re willing to pay for it. However Stella has so far taken a passive, awareness approach when speaking to consumers. And that was about to change…

While the brand was steady in market share, the same could not be said for its consumer engagement online. “Hold on” you say “your share/volume are good, so why care about online chatter?” Well, the Premium category is getting more competitive in both Import and Craft brands, so for Stella Artois to hold its leading place in sales (or even increase it), we needed to gain a share of consumers’ mind space.

Stella Artois has long related to its consumers through a love for creativity, arts and romance. With romance comes love, and with love naturally comes Valentine’s day – a holiday with its own high expectations. Valentine’s Day is adored by some and dreaded by others. Since 2018, there have been over 2.3 Million mentions about Valentine’s Day in Canada, with a surprising 10% of those comments being negative.

Sure, Valentine’s day doesn’t come out of nowhere. It always happens on February 14th. But that doesn’t mean everyone is prepared for it or has anything planned at all. In fact, there are a ton of folks (10% of social conversations) who aren’t sure how to make the day special. As a brand of arts, passion and love, Stella stepped in to help, in real time, on the BIG day...

Canadians were freely vocalizing despair, panic and frustration on how they could make Valentine’s day special for their partner. While we could have showed consumers images of our mouth-watering golden chalice, we knew that would be but a fleeting moment in their already stressful day. So, we decided to take an active part in solving their Valentine’s Day stress: we created the Stella Artois Giftender – just like a bartender, but better. Bartenders are trusted confidantes that provide many with life advice, so our Giftender was a brilliant evolution – the Stella Artois-pouring trusted confidante who uncovered peoples’ cry for help on Twitter, and responded with personalized content. 

In the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, the Giftender gave advice on romance-related topics like Astrology, Poetry, Diamonds, and general advice anyone could benefit from – supported by paid media.

On Valentine’s Day, the Giftender rolled up his sleeves and found Canadians who needed specific and fast help. A mom with a newborn who could not plan a celebration got an impromptu custom picnic basket for a romantic night in. Others got personalized poems sent to their significant others. With continuous video messages created through the day by the Giftender – we delivered surprise and delight moments (and advice) for those that needed it the most.

Our audience loved the fresh and human approach from the brand, which was seen in our engagement on Valentine’s Day.

The campaign hit the mark with Canadian LDAs, gaining:

Earned Impressions: +180% of KPI (270,025)

Total impressions: 7,130,859

Social mentions +213% of KPI (1,600)

Total views: 2,419,358 (at a $8.7 CPM – 20% below benchmark)

+35% draft volume (Feb vs. LY)

The Valentine’s Day Giftender campaign generated 7x the earned impressions and 3x the Social Mentions than the Holiday Campaign just a few weeks prior – on a comparable spend.

The Giftender’s efforts reached far and wide. Even Aviation Gin, Ryan Reynolds’ winning Gin brand, as well as Ryan Reynold’s himself engaged with us, prompting the Giftender to send a romance tip video to Ryan and his wife Blake as a response. After a busy day, there’s no doubt our Stella Giftender enjoyed a peaceful slumber, knowing he’d done his part to help Canadians have a stress-free, romantic Valentine’s Day.