Stella Artois creates new “mindfulness” audio guide to go after millennials

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Stella Artois creates new “mindfulness” audio guide to go after millennials

Bryan Karas

August 16, 2018

There’s no question that yoga, marathons, meditation and relaxation are trending with the millennial audience – I haven’t seen Sally from Accounting since she left for Bali two months ago…

But that doesn’t mean a beer brand should partner up with meditation app to somehow find a way to reach a younger demographic. But according to a Nielsen report, beer brands have struggled to gain traction with this group – younger alcoholics are turning to different booze like wine, exotic spirits and spiked seltzers.

You be the judge and check out a sample of StellaSpace, the audio guide Stella created to target millennials, on YouTube. But it’s only a sample because the full experience needs to downloaded using the Inscape App…

I’m here for the bloated meditation

AB InBev, Stella’s parent company and home to tons of huge beer brands, knocked it out of the park with the positioning of Michelob Ultra – a low carb, low calorie beer for people with active lifestyles.

Earlier this year Michelob released an organic version of Ultra called “Pure Gold” and it was featured in Men’s Health – talk about the perfect placement…

From an expensive wealthy gentleman’s beverage to a price dropped supermarket top seller for drunk and rowdy football fans back to a chic luxury item – Stella’s brand positioning has had its ups and downs throughout its existence.

But if you’re talking about authentic branding and authentic partnerships, beer and a meditation app just aren’t fermenting for my taste. Maybe I’m wrong…maybe it’s all a joke. Because if it’s meant to be funny then this could turn out to be a homerun but if it’s meant to be serious I think it might be some “hackvertising” gone wrong.

How Stella can get her groove back

Even Stella knows that Millennials value experiences over “things.” So take a page out of the Heineken playbook and start sponsoring events.

Eventbrite came out and published the reasons – backed by data – why Millennials love going to events.

They want to build a genuine connection with others…I guess they don’t just want to be stuck behind a screen all day. To contradict everything I just said, they also want “social collateral” – they want to share their experiences with the world…over Instagram, not dinner. And they want some family fun – over 50 percent of all Millennials are now parents.

Learn how Heineken uses Social Media to drive their experiential marketing strategy

We just learned that Millennials value experiences over “things.” But when you finally do dip your toe into experiential marketing how are you going to make sure you squeeze every last drop of value from the marketing dollars spent? Learn how Heineken adds value to their experiential marketing with social media…