Belgian brewer Stella Artois has partnered with Water.org and its Co-Founders Matt Damon and Gary White to launch an eye-catching cause marketing campaign to help raise awareness of the global water crisis that affects 663 million people around the world who lack access to clean water.
Around the world, women spend a combined 200 million hours collecting water every day for their families. That’s 200 million hours they could spend caring for their families, generating income and making other contributions to their communities.
Belgian brewer Stella Artois has partnered with Water.org and its Co-Founders Matt Damon and Gary White to launch an eye-catching cause marketing campaign to help raise awareness of the global water crisis that affects 663 million people around the world who lack access to clean water. The campaign titled “Buy a Lady a Drink” opened at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival January 23 and aims to stop these journeys to collect water so women can start new journeys of their own.
The Campaign:
The 'Buy a Lady a Drink' campaign was first launched in 2015 to utilise Stella Artois' global footprint to help positively impact this important issue. Last year the campaign focused on women's long journeys for clean water. This year, the campaign showcases the positive impact that access to clean water can have, while inspiring consumers to leave a positive mark on the world.
Stella Artois’ campaign, which enlists Water.org’s founders Matt Damon and Gary White, is a massive step in raising awareness about this crucial problem.
The launch event at Sundance Festival featured the unveiling of three digital short films:
• The first film showcases a zoetrope animation, a moving image device that features individual Stella Artois Chalices painted with different scenes of the positive impact that access to clean water can bring -- such as growing crops, earning an income and going to school. As the zoetrope device spins, the individual Chalice images animate, visually bringing to life the many different ways that access to clean water can positively affect lives.
• The second film, featuring Matt Damon with the zoetrope, asks consumers to consider their own personal legacies and challenges them to become part of the generation that ends the global water crisis.
• Finally, the third film is a YouTube 360 video, which brings to life the experience of one woman and her family in Honduras via virtual reality on consumers' mobile devices. At the launch event, guests were able to experience the video directly though Occulus Rift headsets.
The campaign also features several videos highlighting what women and children endure in securing water for their daily needs.
The Creative Shoot:
In this new campaign, Mother London and Production Company, 1stAveMachine, have developed a delicate, painted-glass zoetrope composed of unique Stella Artois chalices.
The campaign is comprised of two films, both shot in Studios in Mallorca with Palma Pictures. The lead 90-second spot features a tower of Stella Artois glasses spiralling skywards in the centre of a pure white studio. As the tower begins to rotate, the painted images tell the story of a woman’s journey for water. A companion film also features an address from Hollywood actor Matt Damon, who contemplates the story on the zoetrope.
Dani Rotsein, Line Producer at Palma Pictures, describes how the creative team put together the plexi-glass sculpture in Binnisalem, Mallorca: “The zoetrope structure was very complex indeed. The art department team worked for two months on the project from design to completion. The sculpture was built in their workshop, tested and then four days before the shoot it was deconstructed and moved to the studios in Binnisalem. “
To achieve the fluid effect presented in the final film – described by Director Tim Brown as a “three dimensional flip book” – the camera was tracked upwards so that the film of the Zoetrope had a stable frame that did not have the typical ‘rising’ effect.
“We had the special Motion Control camera brought down from the UK,” adds Dani; “The production team had one shoot day to catch the locked-frame rate animation shots. The second shoot day was used for the other camera angles as well as shooting the double for Matt Damon - which was an exciting first, as I got to play his body double!”
“Also what you do not see in the final films was the complex lighting scheme. The plexi and glasses reflected everywhere so we had to keep the lighting the same throughout the day but since it was a daylight studio you would see the light changing with the sun’s movement. We had three cranes with lights on them outside as well as lights in the neighbour’s terraces next to the studio in order to help keep the lighting constant.”
