- Stella Artois, an Anheuser-Busch InBev brand, has partnered with “Hot Ones” to serve as the official beer of the YouTube celebrity talk show, in response to a press release. A special episode featuring brand ambassador, rapper and actor Ludacris is out there now.
- As sponsor of the First We Feast-produced program, Stella Artois will appear in five episodes throughout the summer and has a series of activations planned for bars across the country. The beverage marketer may even have a presence at the primary “Hot Ones” event in front of a live audience.
- The collaboration is built around the recognition of wings in bars and the thought of bringing people together over a meal, a standard theme in Stella Artois’ marketing. The effort shows the beer brand leaning on popular culture to interact with consumers.
Stella Artois has long put a concentrate on restaurant dining, with 40% of its 2022 sales occurring on-premise. Now, the brand is seeking to construct off its “Let’s Do Dinner” platform, which centers on partnerships and events designed to create connections over a meal, with a summer-long marketing push around bars and the mega-popular “Hot Ones” program.
The tie-up kicks off with a special “Hot Ones” installment profiling Ludacris, with a pre-roll ad featuring host Sean Evans plugging Stella Artois and the beer displayed prominently through the YouTube interview. “Hot Ones” reaches 1.5 billion YouTube viewers, per details shared with Marketing Dive, and over half (55%) of that audience sits in Stella Artois’ goal demographic.
“With this partnership, we’re excited to be a part of the cultural conversation and reach more audiences in bars across the country, where we are going to proceed to bolster our fame as one in all the very best quality, sessionable beers available in the market,” said Chris Jones, group vp of marketing of premium brands at Anheuser-Busch, in a press statement.
Later in the summertime, Stella Artois and the producer of “Hot Ones” will host an event in Chicago featuring Evans, who can be joined by a high-profile brand ambassador and other celebrities. This is the primary event for the YouTube show that may have a live audience and the beer brand sending 10 grand-prize contest winners to attend.
The collaboration with “Hot Ones,” a series that continues to attract attention with a format that sees celebrities answering a series of questions on their careers while eating increasingly hot wings, is a strategy to tie Stella Artois to a culturual phenomenon while reinforcing its brand messaging around sharing experiences over a meal.
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