Palace Artois is the model collapse you didn't see coming
MPC Creative's campaign reveals a secret to viewers – seen through the eyes of pro driver Lucien Clarke – that there is actually a pub hidden behind the Palace London store.
At first glance, it's a traditional London drunkard with its old, dingy carpet and beer stoves, but a closer look reveals a surprise. Bottles, mats and taps bear the "Palace Artois" brand, as do the hoodies and shirts that everyone wears.
The spot then develops in the style of a classic Stella Artois advertisement – right through to the soundtrack and the parodistically poorly dubbed French – and is intended to celebrate a new collaboration between the two brands. It appears MPC actually built the Palace Artois pub inside the skate brand's Soho store, although visits are apparently entirely dependent on current lockdown laws.
Palace x Stella Artois isn't the first left-field collaboration recently, and in the past few years brands seem to have gone to great lengths to find unexpected partners – Supreme in particular has built a long and fruitful history in the process.
Maybe it's the prospect of the long-awaited return to the pubs and their promise of cold beers on tap, or maybe it's just that Palace doesn't seem to take this too seriously, but there's something about Palace Artois that just makes sense makes.
Credits:
Production agency: MPC Creative
Creative: Stuart Tanju, Mikey Hollywood
Director: Stuart Tanju
Producers: James Niklasson, Johnny Blick, Richard Skinner
Cinematographer: Gerry Vasbenter
Sound designer: Jonny Platt in the Wave Studios
Editor: Ben Crook at Zed
VFX producer: Solomon Tigah