Stella Artois ties with Blue Apron to serve at-home Super Bowl menu

Dive Brief:

Stella Artois wants to help Super Bowl viewers make gourmet food at home with a menu from meal kit service Blue Apron. The Anheuser-Busch InBev beer brand this week introduced Stella Stadium Bites, a game-day menu of four dishes to serve six people, along with four Stella Artois chalices, per an announcement.
Eli Manning and Victor Cruz, who played together when the New York Giants won the Super Bowl nine years ago, will show how to make the recipes in a special version of the "Stella Sessions" cooking show on Jan. 18. Viewers can stream the tutorial from Stella Artois's social media channels and access the menu on Blue Apron's website until Jan. 29, with deliveries arriving the week of Feb. 1 as fans prepare for the big game.
Stella Artois's collaboration with Blue Apron comes as brands look to create interactive experiences for fans at home during the pandemic. A spokesperson declined to comment on whether the beer brand will also run an ad during the Super Bowl.

Dive Insight:

Stella Artois' campaign for the game is another sign of how brands are revamping their promotional efforts as the pandemic continues to interfere with traditional campaigns and sales at restaurants and bars.

Amid the shift in experiential marketing to digital platforms in the past year, the AB InBev brew has deployed a variety of efforts to engage homebound consumers. With many people communicating via social media, Stella Artois in April 2020 launched a "Stella Sessions@Home" cooking series on IGTV, Instagram's video streaming section. Actress Eva Longoria, chef Marcus Samuelsson and others provided cooking classes and urged viewers to support local restaurants during the health crisis.

As far as this year's Super Bowl goes, it's unclear whether Stella Artois will run an in-game spot. It opted for a counterprogramming effort last year, hosting an outdoor event during the game's lead-up as fans gathered in Miami. Its "Port de Stella Miami" activation included a collaboration with gourmet restaurants, celebrity cooking demonstrations and a voyage on a luxury yacht. The idea was to offer an authentic experience, especially for younger adults who share those moments on social media, and reinforce Stella's image as an upscale brand.

Two years ago, Stella Artois ran a Super Bowl commercial, "Change Up The Usual," mashing up characters from "The Big Lebowski" and "Sex and the City" and showing them order a Stella Artois instead of their signature drinks. The brand also partnered with a nonprofit group in 2019 to raise awareness of water conservation as part of its "Pour it Forward" initiative supporting environmental causes.

More recently, Stella Artois's social media contest in December 2020 gave homebound Broadway fans a chance to see a livestreamed performance of songs from the musical "Jagged Little Pill." The beer brand also created a virtual Hotel Artois at Home experience to provide the services of a five-star hotel to viewers, and partnered with travel site Tripadvisor to transform canceled vacations into memorable "staycation" experiences they could link to a Stella Artois beverage.