Product placement in media is a tale as old as time, but the internet was delighted this week after a series of segments showing spots for Chilean beer company Cristal clunkily, yet charmingly, spliced directly into the original Star Wars films have sparked a wave of joyous recreations. Here’s some of the best we’ve seen—either from the galaxy far, far away, or other films.
As we noted on Monday, the viral ads—showcasing Obi-Wan and Emperor Palpatine randomly reaching for a drink in the middle of crucial Star Wars scenes, complete with a catchy jingle—might read like an attempt at contemporary internet shitposting humor, but were very much real. It was the first time in Chilean broadcast TV history that product placements had been retroactively spliced into syndicated material, instead of being added in during production; OMD Santiago, the ad company behind the idea, won a Cannes marketing award for the campaign, even as Lucasfilm successfully lodged legal complaints about the ads.
But while they were real, the imagined ones pinging around the internet this week are very much not. Doesn’t stop them from being fun though!
