BRAND STRATEGY / IAT LEADERSHIP

Making Cuervo mean more than “the cheap gold one”

250 years after creating the tequila category, Jose Cuervo was at risk of missing out on its future. Tequila was taking off in the US and too many people still thought of Cuervo as the thing that made them throw up in college. Young drinkers in particular were less likely to see Cuervo as a “tequila for me”. We needed to give the brand a more relevant POV within culture.

The insight: Tequila is like pressing fast forward on friendship

We spoke with a bunch of young spirits drinkers and one thing stood out: tequila nights are transformative. When you grab a beer with a coworker, nothing changes. But when you have a tequila night with them, you reach a different plane of friendship. You really get to know the person. No pretense, no posturing. Just the good stuff. THIS is the magic of tequila and by extension, Jose Cuervo.

The idea: With Jose Cuervo, there are no strangers

We gave Jose Cuervo a simple yet powerful role in our audience’s lives—i.e. instantly creating more honest connections—and brought our story to life in hyper-relevant ways.

When our target couldn’t travel home for the holidays we helped them send a “DoppelDrinker” instead. When online dating grew stale during lock-down, we spiced things up with an AI experiment. When delivery drivers were getting stiffed, we helped our audience #GetTipsy...

All to reestablish Cuervo as THE culturally-relevant tequila, keeping the brand atop the category it created for the next 250 years.