The Move
Espolòn Tequila launched "Ride the Rooster" on August 25, a global brand platform built around one contrarian argument: premium tequila doesn't require a velvet rope. The campaign introduces Ramón the Rooster and Guadalupe the Calavera — the illustrated characters from Espolòn's iconic bottles, both rooted in the legacy of 19th-century Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada — into live-action video for the first time. Four hero spots across 15- and 30-second formats target the rituals of exclusivity: members lounges, overwrought tasting notes menus, and private cabanas. The platform was developed with San Francisco–based independent agency Venables Bell + Partners and rolls out first in the United States, then Italy, Mexico, Canada, and Australia.
The strategic logic here is worth unpacking for operators and buyers. Espolòn sits inside Campari Group's House of Agave, and the brand has posted a 56% compound annual growth rate since inception — outpacing the broader premium tequila category by a meaningful margin. That growth trajectory gives Campari the leverage to run a provocative global platform that explicitly calls out the celebrity-endorsed, scarcity-marketed corner of the spirits aisle. "Premium doesn't have to mean exclusive," said Andrea Sengara, Managing Director, House of Agave, Campari Group. It's a direct swing at a positioning orthodoxy that has defined the upper tier of the category for the past decade.
What It Signals for Operators
For on-premise buyers and beverage directors, "Ride the Rooster" is a signal about where the mainstream of premium spirits is heading. A segment that spent years chasing aspirational scarcity — limited releases, celebrity equity stakes, velvet-rope allocation windows — is now watching a fast-growing challenger run the opposite playbook in 82 markets. That has practical implications for back-bar curation and menu storytelling. Consumers who have grown fatigued by "exclusive" signaling are increasingly responsive to brands that lead with craft provenance and inclusivity. Espolòn's pitch — 100% Blue Weber Agave, hand-harvested in the Los Altos Highlands of Jalisco, distilled at Casa San Nicolás — gives operators a credible quality narrative that doesn't require a waiting list.
The integrated structure of the campaign is also relevant to operators evaluating spirits partnerships. "Ride the Rooster" spans paid advertising, social, experiential activations, cultural partnerships, retail programs, and on-premise experiences. Brands running this kind of omnichannel footprint tend to generate measurable traffic lift at the account level when on-premise activation dollars follow the above-the-line spend. Buyers negotiating Q4 and fiscal 2027 programming windows should ask Campari's field team what experiential and on-premise investment accompanies the campaign in their markets.
What Agencies and Vendors Should Watch
The creative execution — bottle characters animated via VFX by Framestore, color graded at Company3, directed by Tom Kuntz through MJZ — reflects the production scale Campari is willing to commit behind a challenger-positioned brand. That's a useful benchmark for agencies pitching spirits accounts: the "anti-luxury" positioning lane is no longer a budget-constrained workaround. It is now a fully funded global creative strategy. Will McGinness, Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Venables Bell + Partners, framed the brief as an opportunity to "blow up the conventions and cultural artifice of what 'premium' is supposed to be." The fact that a brand growing at that CAGR is the one making this argument — rather than a scrappy startup — changes the competitive calculus for every other premium and ultra-premium tequila brand managing a global media plan.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
