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Annie Leibovitz Shoots Stella Artois

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A couple of days ago, Stella Artois sent out a press release that iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz was hired by Anheuser-Busch InBev to shoot photos for their Belgian lager. The photos are being released at the Sundance Film Festival, which started two days ago, apparently amid much hoopla. Which makes sense when you realize that Stella Artois is an “official sponsor” of the independent film festival, listed as a “sustaining sponsor.” They’re in fact the only big alcohol company sponsor, among quite a few corporate sponsors. I don’t know why that seems odd to me, but I guess I thought Sundance was supposed be about independent filmmakers, especially when the site also includes a donations page where they make it sound like your $10 will make a grassroots movement possible. Maybe I’ve become jaded, but the nearly two dozen truly big sponsors plus what looks like it could easily be another hundred more company sponsorships, seems counter to the principal of “independent” and their mission of “discovery and development of independent artists and audiences.”

In both the press release, Stella Artois Unveils New Campaign Shot by Legendary Photographer Annie Leibovitz and the Stella Artois website, they refer to it as a “collaboration” between the beer and photographer. But how is hiring a famous photographer and paying her to work a “collaboration” in any meaningful sense?

Merriam-Webster defines collaborate as “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor.” That’s what brewers do when they get together to brew a beer, most times at least, but this just seems like a big company paying a lot of money (one presumes Annie Leibovitz doesn’t work cheap) to an expensive big-name photographer to sell a big product. Does that make it art? I honestly don’t know. I think I’m cranky and overworked these days.

Here’s some more press release spin:

It features British Actor, Noah Huntley and Ukrainian model Tanya Ruban and will appear in the printed fashion titles such as GQ, Elle and Vanity Fair, beginning in February 2013.

“Annie Leibovitz’s work marries artistic genius with painstaking craftsmanship to create timeless beauty,” said Emma Fox, Global Marketing Director, Stella Artois. “This concept is a personal one for Stella Artois. Our fans experience the beer in its finished form, but 600 years of brewing expertise helped make this possible. So we wanted to celebrate both the beauty and the craftsmanship that go into its creation”.

So here’s the results, or at least two of them. You can see lots of behind the scenes of the photoshoot itself — why you’d want to, I don’t really understand — in the Stella Artois Studio, what the press release refers to as an “online experience.”

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It’s not that they’re bad photographs, but they certainly don’t make me want to drink Stella Artois. Didn’t Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer already do this in The Fabulous Baker Boys.

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Beer In Ads #785: Good Beer For Good Fellows

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Friday’s ad is from the early 1930s, for Pabst Blue Ribbon, though it references the NRA — not that one, the other one — in this case the National Recovery Administration. The NRA was the agency charged with implementing the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June of 1933, as part of the New Deal effort to combat the Great Depression. Since it was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935, there’s a pretty short window when the ad most likely ran. Still, the illustration is pretty cool, and looks like the later Beer Belongs ads that the industry ran after World War 2.

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Beer In Ads #784: Camping With Schlitz

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Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1953, showing a scene of a couple camping. They must have just arrived, because he’s just making the fire and her hair looks perfect. Not to mention that kicky sweater ensemble she’s wearing, that looks like the perfect camping outfit. Given the way she’s holding that can of beer up in the air so triumphantly, I think his plan was to take her into the woods and get her drunk. In that, it appears, he may have succeeded.

Schlitz-camping

Beer In Ads #783: What We Want Is Watneys

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Wednesday’s ad is for Watney’s Dairymaid Stout, from what looks to be the 1970s, plus or minus. The first time I ever heard of Watney’s, probably like most Americans, was watching Monty Python, and their reference to “Bleedin’ Watney’s Red Barrel.” One interesting thing from the ad copy. It’s “the perfect mixer with most other beers.” I didn’t realize that was something people looked for in a beer. I also love the line at the bottom, mentioning another one of their stouts. “Watney’s Hammerton Stout: Brewed with Oatmeal & Glucose for Zest.” Yum, glucose. When was that a marketable ingredient?

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Beer In Ads #782: Die Drei Von St. Pauli

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Tuesday’s ad is for, I think, St. Pauli Girl. The ad’s text, “Die Drei Von St. Pauli,” translates roughly as “Three of the St. Pauli,” at least according to Google Translate. I’m not sure, but it appears to be three different beers from the Bavaria St. Pauli Brauerei. But at the bottom of each label, it also reads Brauerei Abzug, so who knows. I don’t much history of the St. Pauli brand before they introduced the eponymous girl in 1977, though it was 1982 when they started choosing a model each year to represent the brand. More importantly, who the hell are those three character standing in front of each bottle?

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Beer In Ads #781: A Harvest Of Rich, Ripe Oats

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Monday’s ad is for the Australian beer Tooheys Oatmeal Stout. It looks to be an older ad, pre-WWII possibly, but I’m not sure. Since it refers to the Oatmeal Stout as building “radiant health,” I suspect that it’s from a time before the age of television. It seems to me that such health claims tend to be in ads from before the 1940s.

Tooheys Oatmeal Stout

Megan Fox For Brahma Beer

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Today I saw in the UK Sun that American actor Megan Fox is doing ads for Brahma, the Brazilian Budweiser, an especially accurate association since Brahma is part of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Why do we care? We don’t, but I’m game to look at a couple of ads with Megan Fox in them. Isn’t that why advertisers chose her? Of course, it’s still a tasteless, flavorless beer.

As Mais Gostosas do Carnival (The Hottest Carnival)

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Is it just me, or does that beer have his arm around Fox? Is the beer wearing sunglasses because he doesn’t want to be seen with Megan Fox?

Convidando Megan Fox Pra Uma Brahma (Inviting Megan Fox for a Brahma)

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And here she is going off to have a picnic. According to the Sun, she’s flying down to Rio to do a commercial and pose for some more ads.

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Although humorously enough, a few years ago the hipster appeared more partial to Pabst Blue Ribbon. This was taken by paparazzi in 2009. Ah, sex and beer. What’s not to love. It seems to me, the big brewers follow a variation of the old lawyer’s adage. “When the law is on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither the facts nor the law are on your side, make an ad hominem attack.” In the brewer’s world it’s more along these lines. “When the beer tastes good, promote the beer. When the brewery has personality, promote the brewer. When the beer has neither, promote a celebrity, a cartoon, or both.”

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Beer In Ads #778: Loyal Greetings

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Wednesday’s ad is for the UK brand Double Diamond, which was originally owned by Allsop, but is now part of the Carlsberg dynasty. The ad’s tagline, “Loyal Greetings from the brewers of Double Diamond,” and shows their cartoon mascot propping himself up, high into the air, on beer bottles so that he can better see the passing parade. As for when the ad is from, the bottom offers a clue. The phrase found there, “A Double Diamond Works Wonders,” was used during the 1970s. I assume there was some sort of royal ta-do going on.

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