The Bar Towel

Stella Artois pouring ritual step #6.

Does anyone else think this is in poor taste?

With the current problems in the Middle East, I can't believe the marketing execs thought this was a good idea.

Maybe I'm being overly sensitive because I picked up the Food & Drink yesterday (9/11) and saw they were running it...

I give it a thumbs up. If you can't handle the marketing, don't handle the beer.

I'm missing something here... I take it that you're talking about some recent advertisement of theirs? More of a description please?

I love you like a brother Derek but grab a homebrew and don't this seriously.

you are removing the head

you are beheading it

crawler wrote:I'm missing something here... I take it that you're talking about some recent advertisement of theirs? More of a description please?

I'm not sure how long it has been around... here's an example: http://www.strategymag.com/aoy/2006/low ... eading.pdf

The current full page ad simply has the title & pic, with the 9 step description on the flip page, along with the "gold standard" establishments.

There's 8 other steps, but this one seems to get the most full page coverage. It's certainly not the imagery I'd want associated with my product.

It looks like some fellow Torontonians might be behind this:
http://www.loweroche.com

Um.... seriously, you're making a big a-do about nothing.

Will some people be offended? Sure they will.

Am I? Not at all.

Will I be happy if a Stella (or InBev in general) marketing campaign blows up in their face? You bet.

Who exactly would be offended by this, I wonder? Families of soldiers who were held hostage in Iraq?

Maybe, but keep in mind that beheadings as a form of execution have been around for millennia, and if Stella is going for this whole "mass-market medieval" thing, I think it's apropos to their branding effort.

Basically: Prevent Stella from including this in their campaign and the terrorists have already won. I daresay Osama bin Laden would benefit from cracking open a cold one.

No actually the marketers have won. You're all talking about this ad.

Any publicity is good publicity.

This is just Stella and their pseudo-mediaeval schtick, using swords & archaic english words like 'behead.'

It's a clever marketing image that is not any more distasteful than say a coat of knight's armor or a witch at a cauldron.

I also don't agree Santa Clause on a beer label should be cause for banning it as 'a child hazard' because we'd have to ban ALL beers with connections to Saints or monks or Christianity. Who's the PC wombat that - because of our insane Chrtistmas gift marketing - decided that the ole German Saint Niklaus was an exclusively child-oriented religious figure? It isn't. Yet you can still buy Samichlaus in Quebec, is that because people are too dumb to know that is the very same fellow on the label?

People need to remove this politically-correct stick from their apse. NEXT.

lister wrote:No actually the marketers have won. You're all talking about this ad.

Any publicity is good publicity.

Yeah, perhaps it is inline with their philosophy:

"Our advertising philosophy is very simple. Don’t outspend the competition. Outsmart them. And the way to outsmart them is to get inside people’s heads and do the kind of advertising that people respond to emotionally and intellectually. They remember it. They talk about it. They enjoy looking at it. Most importantly, they react to it."

http://www.loweroche.com/philosophy.php

I am stunned that anyone could be offended by this ad.

I find it queer a French/Belgian company would be accused of making a reference to a Muslim capital penalty of law when the French perfected the "beheading" with the Guillotine.

This fear of "offending people" BS has to die with a stake through it's fun sucking heart...we're losing our perspective ...and our sense of humor pursuing this politically correct dogma.

The alleged ethnics in question are forbidden to drink beers anyway so what's the fuss...none of this is direct or indirect affront to them even by the wildest stretch. If someone claims "offence" there is a mercenary motive at play. We really need to lighten up folks! Ignore hypersensitive whiners who bray when they get a grain of sand in their undies.

Belgian wrote:This is just Stella and their pseudo-mediaeval schtick, using swords & archaic english words like 'behead.'

Actually it has to do with the well established 9 step pour and presentation by Stella publicans.

http://www.letranger-stellaartois.com/i ... alAge=true