Coincidences are funny things. For example, a Chilean beer called Cerveza Cristal and a U.S. movie called “Star Wars” both debuted in 1977. Both would become cultural touchstones, but their paths didn’t cross until 2003 when Obi Wan-Kenobi reached into a chest full of ice and grabbed a cold one.
In 2003, Canal 13 had good news and bad news. The good news was that the Chilean TV station was broadcasting the “Star Wars” trilogy. The bad news was that executives did not want any zapping (an even more casual term for channel surfing) during commercial breaks, but they did most certainly want to generate ad revenue during the broadcasts.
In collaboration with the makers of one of Chile’s most popular beer brands, Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas (CCU), a creative workaround was reached. Instead of producing a special “Star Wars” inspired television commercial or reimagining scenes from the movie using actors and a fresh script that cleverly worked their product into the plot, the advertising and marketing minds behind Cerveza Cristal simply spliced a short and simple piece of product footage into actual movie footage. Demarcated by an almost imperceptible black frame around the non-original footage, the ad then quickly cut back to original movie footage. It took little more than cojones grandes and a male hand model able to hold a refreshing pilsner without covering up the label with his thumb.
Production values were low — GQ magazine in Spanish called the campaign “advertising vandalism” — no actors were used, and no lines were spoken. However, after 21 years, many awards, and one kinda lawsuit, this series of television commercials has gone viral. In March 2024, an X (Twitter) user unearthed the ads and posted about them. Memes proliferated. Press around the world piled on. Stephen Colbert referenced the shenanigans on his show. Hilarity ensued.
The prequel to the Cerveza Cristal/“Star Wars” memaplaoosa is slightly more complicated.
In 2003, five installments of the scene splicing “Star Wars” ads were produced by creatives at Chilean advertising companies OMD Chile and Efex. They were given names like “A New Hope” and “The Force Is with Cristal Beer.” In one version, real film footage of Yoda schooling Luke Skywalker during a convivial piggyback ride is seen before spliced-in footage appears to show Luke’s hand reaching for a can of Cerveza Cristal (inexplicably wedged into a tree) before cutting back to real film footage of Luke contemplating The Force or some such. In another version, Palpatine delivers a scathing monologue about Darth Vader — which is somehow loving, envious, and disdainful at the same time — then plops into his dastardly throne before a spliced-in hand appears to conjure a can of Cerveza Cristal from the very bowels of the Earth before the movie resumes.
Around 2003 in Chile, when the original trilogy of “Star Wars” began airing on television there, they did this funny thing to avoid cutting to commercial breaks. They stitched the commercials into the films themselves. Here is one of them, with the English dub added in. pic.twitter.com/wC7N2vPNvv
— Windy
