Saatchi & Saatchi New York launched the first-ever national campaign for Heineken’s Tecate lager brand, with a pair of 30-second broadcast ads featuring Mexican boxing star Canelo Alvarez and soccer referee Felipe Ramos Rizo promoting Tecate Light as “Born Bold.”
In the ad starring Alvarez, a deep-voiced narrator introduces the brand’s black eagle and Alvarez as “a champion.” Alvarez sits on a ridiculous gold throne with a gold crown on his head and gold boxing gloves on his hands, the voiceover continues, “This just isn’t right” as the eagle looks on disapprovingly and Alvarez ditches his get-up for something more down to earth. The second spot sees the eagle glare at Rizo, ensuring he makes the right call when a player takes a dive in the hopes of drawing a penalty. If those sound like utterly ridiculous scenarios that have nothing to do with the brand itself, it’s because they are. It’s hard to imagine either ad winning over any new drinkers with such goofy appeals to masculinity.
The campaign arrives following a year in which the brand saw sales climb 46 percent and also sees Tecate doubling its investment in digital and social marketing. “Born Bold” targets the brand’s core market of bicultural Hispanics while also looking to appeal beyond that demographic. Beyond the broadcast ads, digital and social, the campaign also includes various retail executions and new packaging designed by global agency Elmwood.
“Our drinkers are bicultural: second or third-generation Mexicans who are also Americans who live between those two worlds but don’t go far from their roots,” Tecate brand director Belen Pamukoff explained to Adweek. “Together with Saatchi & Saatchi, we started going deeper inside the bicultural consumer.”
“This spot translates beyond our target audience because nobody likes the player who overacts or flops on the field,” added Saatchi & Saatchi New York CCO Jay Benjamin. “We see that everywhere in American sports.”
“This bicultural audience is one of the most culturally influential in America,” he added. “They’re not just Mexican, they’re Mexican-American—and they’re fluid in that duality. We learned in research that they view this as a plus-one advantage.”
Credits:
Client: Tecate Light
Campaign Title: “Born Bold”
Creative Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi New York
Chief Creative Officer: Jay Benjamin
Creative Director: Iain Neville
Creative Director: Johnnie Ingram
Art Director: Ryan Gifford
Copywriter: Devin McGillivary
Head of Film: John Doris
Senior Producer: Tina Lam
Producer: Frances Edwards
Group Account Director: Parker Barnum
Management Supervisor: Jamie Daigle
Account Executive: Stacey Skulnik
Planning Director: Federico Evangelista
Production company: Hungry Man
Director: Dave Laden
DP: Corey Walter
Executive Producer: Kevin Byrne
Producer: Caleb Dewart
Service company: Tonic Films
Executive Producer: Susie Neill
Editorial: Cosmo Street Editorial
Editor: Aaron Langley
Executive Producer: Maura Woodward
Senior Producer: Luiza Naritomi
Assistant Editor: Josh Berger
Finishing House: Switch FX
Audio: Butter + Mr Bronx
Mixer/Sound Designer: Eric Hoffman
Producer: Claudia Gaspar
Music: Butter
Managing Director/Executive Producer: Ian Jeffreys
Producer: Ryan Faucett
Color: Company 3
Colorist: Tom Poole
Producer: Clare Movshon
Visual Effects: Method Studios
SVP Business Development: Stuart Robinson
Executive Producer: Angela Lupo
Producer: Heather Saunders
VFX Supervisor: Doug Luka
CG Supervisor: Ivan Guerrero
Compositing Supervisor: Ryan Leonard
Animation Supervisor: Matthew Hackett
Lead Rigger: Joon Lee
Lead FX TD: Tomas Slancik
Lead Lighting/Shading: Yuri Serizawa
Modeling/Tracking Lead: Brian Dinoto
Production TD: Matt Kushner
Massive TD: Rick Walia
Texturing: Sari Rodrig, Lauren Kushner
Animators: Matt Hackett, Joon Lee, Paul Wei, Rob Dollase, Sean Curran
FX Artists: Tomas Slancik, Matt Kushner, Zach Lewis, Vraja Para
Lighting: Yuri Serizawa, Ben Jones, Jon Parker, Vraja Para, Zach Lewis, Lucy Choi
Compositing: Ryan Leonard, Robert “Nick” Dauphinais, Chad Herrada, John Mangia, Aaron Baker
Storyboard Artist: Tyler Gibb