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Stella Artois is claiming a new-media first with a deal that brings

together some of the internet’s most prominent film sites in an internet

sponsorship package to underline the beer brand’s long-running

association with movies.

The deal pulls together The Guardian’s Film Unlimited website, Emap’s

Empire Online and Carlton Communication’s Popcorn movie site to run a

Stella-branded competition to find the best films of the coming

year.

It is thought to be the first time that several sites have collaborated

to provide a fully integrated and interactive sponsorship package for an

advertiser.

Each site already has a facility whereby users can score new film

releases, but the Stella initiative will aggregate all the scores from

each of the sites to give an ’internet’ rating for the films. They will

be graded by the number of Stella bottles they deserve. Stella will also

receive integral branding on each of the websites and links into its own

site.

The deal was put together by the Starcom Motive Partnership and Lateral,

the media agency and specialist web agency for Stella’s parent,

Whitbread.

It will run for the next 12 months, at the end of which there will be an

official Stella film awards ceremony.

John Owen, the head of digital services at Starcom Motive Partnership,

said: ’It’s a great example of how a true partnership between media

agencies and media owners can work to everyone’s advantage on the

web.’

The initiative launches next Tuesday to coincide with coverage of the

Oscars.