Tecate Light targets Hispanic Millennials with a crowdsourced campaign

The battle for millennial beer money is heating up in the Hispanic market: Tecate, the Heineken-owned Mexican beer, today launched its latest effort aimed at targeting “bicultural” Mexican-American Gen Y-ers in the Sunbelt states.

“One Bold Night” is a short film released today, broken into four 60-second clips, that depicts an epic night from the point of view of a Tecate drinker and, for the first time, includes a cameo by the brand mascot, the black eagle. The narrative progresses from a gritty boxing match to a penthouse party — and ends with a cliffhanger. The fifth video will be created with help from fans of the beer.

“What we really aspire to do is celebrate our fans and connect with them on an emotional level,” said Belen Pamukoff, Tecate’s brand director. “We want to celebrate that little something extra these bicultural Mexican-American men are born with, but we know we have to do it in an engaging way because they are as promiscuous [with brands] as the rest of the millennials.”

Toward that end, Tecate Light is asking fans to continue from where the fourth video leaves off by submitting photos of their wildest night out. The best snaps submitted to the brand’s Facebook and Twitter channels with the hashtag #OneBoldNight will then be turned into branded social media posts. Other fans will vote with likes and shares. Ultimately, Tecate Light will throw a party for the winner, which will be filmed, edited and released as the fifth and final installment of “One Bold Night.”

Created by Saatchi & Saatchi New York, “One Bold Night” is the next step in the “Born Bold” campaign, which launched in March, with the black eagle logo as its centerpiece for the first time.

The beer brand battle for thirsty Hispanic millennials is intense. Roughly half (45 percent) of the money Hispanics spend on alcohol goes toward beer, according to a Nielsen study from fall 2014. While Corona Extra is the top-selling imported beer, according to market research firm IRI, Tecate Light is growing fast, with sales rising over 55 percent between March 2014 and March 2015. A lot’s at stake: Millennial Hispanics represent $1 trillion in spending power.

Perhaps the most identifiable imported beer campaign is “The Most Interesting Man in the World” by Dos Equis, which made the beer a household name. The campaign, starring Jonathan Goldsmith as the world’s most interesting man, kicked off in 2006. U.S. sales of the beer increased each year between 2006 and 2010, according to the company.

Tecate Light, owned by the same parent company, is gunning for the similar cultural influence: Last month, it landed the sponsorship rights to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight for $5.6 million. It also ran an accompanying campaign featuring Sylvester Stallone and renowned boxing commentator Larry Merchant called “#MyBoldOpinions.” The brand reached 96 percent of Hispanic males on Facebook between the ages of 21 and 34 in May through all campaign activity, according to Tecate.

“It’s pretty smart for them to put their money behind Hispanic millennials and such digital efforts, because Hispanics tend to skew more toward lagers and lighter beers, and it’s also still a beer their roots are tied to,” said Joe Gutierrez, chief strategy officer at Easy Agency.

Tecate said that it will continue to push efforts in this direction, and aspires to be in every hand.

“From a business perspective, we aspire to be the highest selling brand among Hispanic millennials, and building awareness is the key to do that,” said Iain Nevill, creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York. “We’re the underdogs.”

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