People Are Flipping Out Over An Old Beer Ad That Was Bizarrely Edited Into A TV Airing Of ‘Star Wars’

Product placement has been a staple (if not scourge) of cinema since the dawn of the medium. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s done as a satirical joke (while also serving as product placement). But no example is as out-there as what a Chilean advertising agency did when they hawked Cerveza beer back in the early aughts.

Over the weekend someone on Twitter/X dropped an example of what Chilean TV viewers saw when they watched the original Star Wars trilogy. Among the advertisers was Cristal Beer, but instead of stopping the movie for traditional commercial breaks, they had their product edited right into the film itself. For example, this is what happens early on in the first Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker first meets Obi-Wan Kenobi.

That’s right: Obi-Wan grabs a Cristal Cerveza, complete with a little jingle. Can they get Cristal at the Mos Eisley cantina? Probably not!

That wasn’t the only example. There’s the part where Obi-Wan is infiltrating the Death Star.

And the climax from Return of the Jedi, with Emperor Palpatine chilling on his throne with a cool one before he eats it (before coming back, of course).

Not only are these real, but the ads won awards. A 2004 piece by The Guardian reveals that OMD Santiago, the agency that came up with this idea, scooped up the top award at that year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival. Cristal wound up edited into a number of major films as they aired on TV, a move the judges deemed “genius.”

The posts blew up, and soon a new meme was born, with people splicing Cristal into all manner of movies and shows and whatnot. There were more Star Wars ones.

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Lord of the Rings.

Dune.

Spider-Man 2.

Alien.

Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Se7en.

Surely Cristal is enjoying all this free advertising.

(Via Business Insider)