Ruling the galaxy with an iron fist and a not-insignificant amount of planet-sized battle stations is tiring work, and that’s even before you get to sexing your way to an immortal bloodline of evil. What’s an Emperor and Dark Lord of the Sith to do if not occasionally sit back, relax, and crack open a beer with the boys (the boys being the Imperial Ruling Council)?
That’s probably not what was at the forefront of the minds behind these incredible adverts for the Chilean beer Cristal, which went viral on social media over the weekend for being shitposts come to life. When the original Star Wars movies first received dubbed TV broadcasts in country in the early aughts, Chilean ad agency OMD Santiago hatched a marketing plan for Cristal by convincing broadcasters to run in-movie advertisements for the beer, to save having to messily edit a film to allow for regular ad breaks. Instead, you got “in-character” moments like Obi-Wan Kenobi opening a chest in his homestead to reveal not just Anakin’s lightsaber within, but a refreshing icebox of Cristal—complete with a jingle.
They are actually real—not only did Gizmodo check in with a Chilean contact to confirm these did air, not just in Star Wars broadcasts but across several major films at the time, in 2004 OMD Santiago won a major advertising award at Cannes for the campaign, much to Lucasfilm’s chagrin. The studio actually won a legal case in Chile about the telecast the same year, but that didn’t stop it from becoming an ad trend after OMD Santiago’s award-winning success.
You can check out a few more of the Star Wars ads below, which mostly just show Obi-Wan Kenobi to have a bit of a drinking habit during the events of A New Hope.
I mean, after finally convincing the son of the chosen one to join your spiritual battle against his dad/your former apprentice a couple of decades after he helped purge most of your friends and co-workers, wouldn’t you?
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