Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a traditional Mexican holiday and celebration that honors loved ones who have passed. This year’s festivities received special attention from tequila brand Don Julio, which hosted Día de Muertos celebrations in 15 cities globally and unveiled oversized altar installations (“ofrendas”) across eight of them.
The goal of the brand is to “own” the holiday by introducing traditional celebrations to markets less familiar with them, honoring its own Mexican roots and educating consumers on tequila—all with an eye on growth.
“This became a clear opportunity for us to grab ahold of what is a massive moment for us in Mexico… but also take that celebration and that moment to other markets,” says Sophie Kelly, Global Director of Agave at Diageo. “Tequila is going to be the biggest recruitment engine in spirits. And right now we are seeing about 12% organic net sales growth across the brand globally. We see ourselves as playing a very big role in educating people on premium tequilas.”
We spoke to Kelly about the global campaign, its multi-level marketing plan and her overall strategy for brand growth.
Chief Marketer: Have you ever gone so big with a Don Julio activation in general? Why go global with this particular activation?
Sophie Kelly, Global Director of Agave at Diageo: We started this journey maybe 14 months ago. The actual event is such a vibrant, festive celebration where everybody comes together to honor people that they’ve lost in their life and to bring them back through altars, ofrendas and experience. We’ve never actually done it like this before. If you think about Guinness, it owns St. Pat’s Day globally. They had to start with something that came from them that was a part of their DNA, that they could then create an experience around in other markets to bring people in.
We thought, well, what if—being the authentic tequila brand—we made Día de Mortes a key, global iconic moment in culture? And by doing that, we are bringing Mexicanity to the world and bringing tequila to people in an authentic way for them to experience. So it’s the start. We are so delighted with the amount of people that have gotten behind this. We have Bogotá, Cape Town, London, LA, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, Sao Paulo… They are executing the full Día de Mortes experience with the ofrenda at the center. And then we have over 30 other markets bringing celebrations to their communities and to their local markets.
CM: You mentioned that this is the start. Will you do this every year and really try to own the holiday?
SK: We want to get bigger and bigger and build on it. We do believe it’s a unique holiday we can own. As we take tequila around the world, which is something that you read about in all our investment reports, we are creating consumer experiences that are highly engaging, celebratory and that can educate people on how to enjoy tequila, not just from a drinks perspective, but become immersed in Mexican culture and Mexican rituals in their market.
CM: How are you ensuring that these activations are authentic across the world?
SK: One of our top strategic concerns was that this can’t feel inauthentic to the actual festival and its origins from Mexico. So we partnered with creators and our Mexican team. It’s also critically important when you think about the altars and ofrendas. There is a particular way that they get constructed, with the marigolds, the design, etc. We’ve partnered with Renteria, a floral designer, on creative guidelines to help all of our markets create the experience… Each element and artifact that goes into the ofrenda and the experience has been guided by a group of creators that we have specifically picked with that top of mind. It cannot feel like a commercialized, westernized version of what the festival and the celebration is about.
CM: In terms of getting the word out about these installations and celebrations, and connecting the dots between them, what’s your marketing plan?
SK: Number one: We have the event, the experience, we have the artifacts and we have the creators engaged in capturing content around the experiences on the ground, in over 30 markets. And we have that content coming through to a central hub where we are curating and creating multiple stories films to capture multiple events globally. And that will go out in all of our paid and social channels to amplify [the events] for other people who aren’t around it. Then on the ground in the markets, we have about 250 creators and influencers creating content off of that experience.
When we create a moment like this in market, it allows us to do what we love to do best, which is culturally-created commercial impact. This goes a layer outwards to impact on-premise experiences in outlets, retail experiences at point-of-sale, etc. We have an entire commercial toolkit on how you can take this moment and amplify it out to different parts of the market so that other people can experience the drinks, the moment, the festivity.
CM: How do you plan to stategically “own” the holiday?
SK: Different markets are at different stages of engaging in tequila. You’ve got a lot of people out there whose memory of tequila is shots and bad experiences at college. We believe this is going to drive a lot of reconsideration and bring a lot more people into the category. Another critical thing is that we’re executing this in seven major markets across global travel. So whether you’re in a market or you’re traveling into a market, you’re going to see it. On the commercial side, we’re also doing LTOs—limited offer products. We are doing value-added packaging and retail experience with it, which make it go from top-line awareness into actually doing something in the communities and bringing people into rich experiences, advertising content and commercial driving tools to bring back ROI.
CM: What would make this a success?
KS: What we hope to get is the authentic delivery of this amazing celebration and tradition from Mexico, understood globally. The other thing is commercial impact. How many people have we brought into tequila? How many people have experienced tequila in a different way in markets? And what kind of ritual and behavior and education have we put around tequila that will last beyond the actual moment? We hope that this is the start of creating a legacy, cultural moment for many different markets.
CM: Beyond this particular campaign, what’s your overall plan to achieve growth?
KS: We continue to see huge growth globally around the category. Tequila is going to be the biggest recruitment engine in spirits. And right now we are seeing about 12% organic net sales growth across the brand globally. We see ourselves as playing a very big role in educating people on premium tequilas. We are going to do that in a number of ways. One, by demonstrating cultural appreciation of where the tequila comes from, the rituals and the festivals that exist within that culture, and taking them broader.
We’re going to do it through innovation. We’re working on rare expressions of Don Julio and what they’d look like. We’re working on our cast program. We’re working on thinking through flexible formats. So if Don Julio 1942 is the OG of celebration, and it’s at this price point, how do we bring more people in to sip tequila by offering them different formats that are more accessible? We did the Don Julio minis launch in the Oscars, and that format’s now gone global. If you can’t afford to buy or do the whole thing, we’re giving you an access point into a luxury experience, which educates you on what sipping tequilas taste like.
CM: How does the education piece play in?
KS: We’ve got a couple of really cool pieces of technology. I talked to you about the Don Julio Apple Pro experience. If you can’t actually get to an experience or you can’t go to Mexico to understand it, we’re going to bring those to you. We’re hoping to put some of this content in there to help educate. We’ll create more of a series, which brings you into the heart and soul of Don Julio, of tequila, and educates you on culture, the drinks and the different expressions, from cast and rare.
When you look at tequila overall, it does not have the household penetration of whiskey or vodka. But in fact, its growth is coming, and it’s borrowing from those kind of experiences—whether it be over ice with sipping or [enjoying] the versatility of tequila and mixing it in just about any cocktail, or just simple mixed drinks. Part of our big commitment to the business, to Mexico and to the category to drive growth is to drive education. We sit in North America, where we know everybody’s drinking tequila. But outside of North America and Mexico, it’s still a developing category and a new way to experience spirits.
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