Since 2021, the global brewer AB InBev has been most notable for the creativity behind beer brands such as Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois, pursuing a bold strategic shift by placing creativity at the centre of its growth model.
Ab InBev are the first company in history to receive this accolade three times, with Cannes Lions Juries consistently recognising the results of this placement of creativity, with work from 10 countries, honoured across 15 different Lion Awards in 2025 alone.
Marcel Marcondes, AB InBev’s Global CMO, took to the Lumière Theatre stage this morning to talk through what it took to get there.
Marcel emphasised the importance of passion points for brands and creating campaigns that connected to emotional events so that consumers can feel the brand beyond just ads. He went on to use the example of Stella Artois’s clay bar activation in Paris for Roland-Garros.
Inspired and made entirely from Roland-Garris clay, the activation blended tennis, art, and premium hospitality. As the activation went on, consumers made their mark on the clay with guests leaving covered in clay, showing how the taste of Stella is worth sacrificing Grand Slam fashion for. Marcel explained how the activation was labelled as one of the best activations of the year, becoming one of the most talked about and shared brands from the tennis calendar.
Staying on the topic of Stella, Marcel also delved into Stella’s plans for Wimbledon. He revealed that the brand will be removing all of its signature colours from its packaging, revealing its limited edition, “dressed for the occasion” cans, mirroring Wimbledon’s legacy and tradition in its all-white uniform rules.
He explained how the brand tapped into 90s icon Andre Agassi, who notoriously wore bright, vibrant colours and boycotted the festival until 1991. He swapped his vibrant colours for the all-white tradition, winning the grand slam in 1992. It was this conformance that inspired them to remove all branded colour other than white from their Stella cans in celebration of the iconic tournament. Stella is also releasing a limited edition strawberries and cream inspired by the iconic fruit tradition at the tournament.
Touching on technology, Marcel explained the importance of going beyond technology and going beyond the ad, using the Corona and the Paris Olympics as his jumping-off point. He explained how, over the course of the Paris Olympics, Corona, as the first global beer sponsor of the games, had the fastest response to iconic moments from the celebration of sport. Through the speed and use of technology, Corona managed to translate shots from the games into OOH ads for their “For Every Golden Moment” campaign, becoming the number one share of voice.
This campaign was delivered through the use of technology and humans together, which Marcel emphasised you can’t have one without the other; there must be a balance, stating how, despite technology being a “great enabler”, successful campaigns need to “start and end with humans.”
To summarise his talk, Marcel concluded by going over what we’ve learned, ending with the importance of dreaming big, but staying humble, solving business and consumer problems, consistency is underrated, and to remember that this is a human business. Finally, he concluded that BV at AB InBev has reached an all-time high in net revenue, ending with the quote, “Greatness requires trust and trust takes time to build.”
