Don't miss ADWEEK House at Cannes, June 16-19. Join us as we celebrate our 45th anniversary and explore the industry's now and next. RSVP.
Watching the new campaign for Dos Equis, viewers may notice one very conspicuous thing missing … well, two things if you count his famous beard.
The beer brand’s first major campaign since moving its account from Havas Worldwide to Droga5 last year contains no trace of The Most Interesting Man in the World, or the two actors who played him—who served as its iconic face for more than a decade.
But Dos Equis still wants to keep things “interesante” with the help of a few beer-fueled tall tales.
“He’s not dead; we’re intentionally not killing him,” Dos Equis brand director Quinn Kilbury said of the Most Interesting Man, “but we need to focus on the brand and getting its benefits out to the world, versus a focus on The Man.”
That said, the campaign has been successful beyond the company’s wildest dreams. What began as a regional campaign running only in the Southwest in 2006 grew into a global phenomenon, inspiring spoofs and leading to what Kilbury said was 11 million cases sold in Texas alone.
“We ended up selling The Man too often,” Kilbury said in explaining the pivot away from the character made famous by Jonathan Goldsmith and later played by actor Augustin Legrand. “It’s not that the latest version of The Man wasn’t good … but it wasn’t good enough.”
The other ads in the campaign that debuted today make clear that the brand’s strategy is to come up with variations on the theme of exaggeration in the interest of keeping an audience interested, much like The Man himself once did.
“As we look at what drinkers and young people today value, the meaning of ‘interesting’ has changed,” said Droga5 creative director Ryan Raab. “It used to be about status, wealth, power and accomplishments. Now it’s more outward facing: being engaged, being interesting … and just telling a great story. The upside of that is that anyone can be interesting.”
Or, as Kilbury put it: “Only one Man can be interesting, but anyone can be interesante.”
In keeping with the theme of exaggeration, the campaign also includes a series of “fake news” sites with believable names like Marketing Worldly, News Times Gazette and Best New Ads that make outlandish claims like the non-fact that the campaign bore “a staggering cost of nearly $200 million.” According to another story, it occurred on the same set as the (obviously staged) moon landing.
These pages, of course, redirect to the Dos Equis website.
Kilbury said the brand will be working on new themes tied to Cinco de Mayo and that Droga5 will produce more content for social and digital in the weeks and months to come.
“It was a pretty crazy 50-year-long shoot,” said Raab, chuckling. “We did lots of neat things like shooting in 8K, which is more definition than the human eye can see. We thought it was definitely worth it; it was all in service of telling a really great story.”
CREDITS
Agency: Droga5
Client: Dos Equis
Campaign: “Keep It Interesante”
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Executive Creative Director: Scott Bell
Creative Director: Ryan Raab
Copywriter: Ryan Snyder
Art Director: Katie Willis
Jr. Copywriter: Jenny Yoon
Jr. Art Director: Maria Kouninski
Group Design Director: Devin Croda
Designer: Erin Wilson
Creative Technology Director: Brian Moore
Creative Technologist: Chloe Karayiannis
Jr. Creative Technologist: Danielle Clemons
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale
Co-Director of Film Production: Jesse Brihn
Executive Producer, Film: Rebecca Wilmer
Associate Producers, Film: Phillip Cheng & Carlos Valdivia
Music Supervisor: Mike Ladman
Director of Business Affairs: Jocelyn Howard
Sr. Business Affairs Manager: Whitney Vose
Business talent manager: Dino Spanakis
Traffic Manager: Wendy Kaplan
Co-Director of Interactive Production: Tasha Cronin
Senior Producer, Interactive: Andrew Puzzuoli
Director of Print Services: Rob Lugo
Producer, Print: Ariel Wakasa-Gonzalez
Group Strategy Director: Ramon Jimenez
Strategy Director: Nick Maschmeyer
Strategist: Alex Cohen
Communications Strategy: Director Yan Wang
Communications Strategist: Clark Cofer
Sr. Data Strategist: Joshua Gordon
Head of Account Management: Dan Gonda
Group Account Director: Edward Rogers
Account Directors: Celeste Pulman & Bradley Allen
Account Supervisor: Taylor Berry
Associate Account Manager: Kenzie Grubbs
Project Manager: Hillary Jordan
Legal: Sarah Fox & Zachary Werner
Cient
Senior Brand Manager: Quinn Kilbury
Brand Director: Karla Flores
Brand Manager: Hannah Dray
Brand Manager: Lindsay Certilman
Junior Brand Manager: David Smith
Production Company: MJZ
Director: Tom Kuntz
DOP: Bradford Young
Sr. Executive Producer: Eriks Krumins
Producer: Emily Skinner
Editorial: Whitehouse Post
Editor: Alaster Jordan
Assistant Editor: Alejandro Villagran
Assistant Editor: Sam Ommen
Executive Producer: Caitlin Grady
Producer: Nick Crane
Post Production: Smoke and Mirrors
Executive Producer: Steve Intrabartola
Producer: Krystle Timm
CG Director: Michael Donovan
Lead Flame Artist: Dino Tsaousis
Color: Co3
Executive Producer: Ashley McKim
Senior Producer: Katie Andrews
Colorist: Stefan Sonnenfeld
Sound: Gramercy Park Studios
Audio Engineer: Chris Afzal
Audio Engineer: Collin Blendell
Vicky Ferraro: Head of Post Production
Laura Goerhrke: Producer
