Stella Artois Shakes Up Views on Summer Vacations

What makes a vacation? Going out of country? For some people. But just because I didn’t get to the French Riviera this summer doesn’t mean I didn’t go on vacation. “Vacation isn’t about where you are, it’s about how you see things,” said Idris Elba in Stella Artois’ Summer Like You’re On Vacation ad. “You just have to make home the place you want to write home about.”

Home was the goal behind Stella Artois’ summer campaign. The promotion, which launched with a Red Stella Cup plastic chalice, included spots featuring Elba encouraging people to change their outlook on hometown vacations this summer by purchasing Stella. A sip would make New Yorkers think of New York as Isla Del Manhattan. For Philadelphia, it would be Vista Del-Phia.

Consumers on vacation tend to splurge, but if they’re on a local vacation, they may hesitate to do so. Peter Van Overstraeten, vice-president, premium brands at Anheuser-Busch, wanted the ad to tell consumers to have the summer vacation state of mind, regardless of where they were, “by inspiring consumers to trade up to [their] premium European lager…”

Stella also used social media with #SummerLikeVacation, which challenged the idea of what constitutes a vacation. I don’t have Twitter, but if I did, I’d tweet: “Easy! Just let me take a sip of my Stella Artois and I’ll tell ya’!”