Cristal beer in Star Wars: the story behind the advertising campaign that went viral

A few years ago, competition between television channels was fierce. They did everything they could to avoid losing their audience. For example, they were able to disguise an advertisement in a film as if it were part of the plot so as not to create commercial interruptions. Look what happened to Star Wars and beer. Glass.

In the last few hours, three clippings belonging to the Star Wars broadcasts on Chilean television in which these camouflaged advertisements appear have gone viral on the networks.

The videos aroused the fascination of foreign audiences, so much so that the news reached Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on American television.

What’s behind all this?

The programs featuring the beer advertisement were broadcast between December 2003 and February 2004, on Channel 13. The idea was that the brand would appear in the film as if it were part of the story. A product placement entitled “The Force is with Cerveza Cristal” which today seems impossible to replicate.

Philip Wielandt, Cristal’s then head of marketing, said that at the time “there was the challenge of combating zapping so that consumers could be exposed to the brand through such a massive medium as TV.” “It was crazy“, he has declared.

Wielandt explained in a conversation with The Clinic that Channel 13 had to insert the commercials “in a creative and subtle way that avoided zapping, surprising our consumers”.

The idea came from the agencies. The agreement stipulated that Canale 13 had to include three interventions by Cristal in the films. Wielandt reviewed “the proposals for intervention on the current film that Channel 13 presented to us, where an imperceptible black box separated the film from the commercial intervention”.

“The idea was to match the original scene as much as possible. being careful never to intervene in the film. We couldn’t use actors, there weren’t even dialogues that imitated the originals. There were three to five seconds where our product suddenly appeared as if it were on a stage,” Felipe explained.

And he continued: “The creativity and genius of surprising the viewer not only with very well made pieces, but with the idea that comes from the use of the media and a profitable investment, which was brilliant,” stood out.”

Even then the excitement was such that the decision also reached the ears of George Lucasthe creator of the saga.

“He (Lucas) was also talking about us 20 years ago. Today thousands of people around the world have taken it back, including Elon Musk. It is a source of pride for every Chilean that the advertising of a Chilean brand gives so much to talk about,” concluded the creative.