At a time when transparency, authenticity and clarity are more important than ever, PATRÓN believes people deserve to know what they are enjoying in every glass of the world’s number one ultra-premium tequila: 0% Additives, 100% PATRÓN Tequila.
For decades, some tequila makers have added artificial flavors, aromas and colors to alter quality and enhance the taste of their products. PATRÓN has never compromised quality for efficiencies and is one of the only tequila brands that has remained dedicated to a traditional, handcrafted, additive-free production process since the brand’s inception — without altering the smell, taste or color with artificial ingredients.
Celebrating all things real during the 2020 holidays, PATRÓN set out to tell its additive-free story in a unique way, create a dynamic consumer-forward, multi-pronged campaign, and spread awareness around transparency.
2020 was the year of the reset, a year of great resilience that made us reassess who and what we want in our lives. PATRÓN is proud to not only be honest and real about its production process, but also to be one of the few brands that still makes tequila the hard way — by hand, not cutting corners with fake or artificial ingredients. From hand-harvesting the best 100% Weber Blue Agave, to the time-honored distillation process and individual inspection of each bottle, PATRÓN tequila is crafted with a devotion to purity of spirit and is verified additive-free by independent tequila analysis company, Tequila Matchmaker.
To spread this message of authenticity and transparency, PATRÓN chose a time when people reflect on what really matters to them and recognize those that have stood by their side: the holidays leading into the New Year.
“Toast Your Real Ones with PATRÓN” was born, a campaign honoring the real ones in our lives: those who have supported us and celebrated us through the ups and downs of this year. The campaign featured an engaging social and digital content series created for and by real people, an influencer activation haloing PATRÓN’s additive-free messaging and earned media efforts leveraging campaign assets and interviews.
While PATRÓN wanted to use social to share its additive-free story, it was important to do it in a way that felt real. At the heart of the campaign is a compelling video series that spotlights three groups of friends — the real friends of filmmakers Luka Wilson, Julia Pitch and Katharina Raven, in cities across the country, from New York to Atlanta to Los Angeles, and the unique ways they celebrated the holidays: virtually, socially distanced or living together. The one constant? They all chose PATRÓN tequila to celebrate together, because it's real, just like they are.
To capture PATRÓN's commitment to being completely free of additives and keep the video as natural as possible, three groups of friends were filmed simultaneously in real-time. What is seen on-screen is what was really happening in three cities, at the same time, on a single night. Luka, Julia, and Katharina attended each of the gatherings, simply to capture each celebration through their eyes, words, moments together and lens. The action, wardrobe, interaction among friends and music from Troop Brand were all unscripted, unrehearsed and captured live to further enforce the campaign’s mission of authenticity and transparency.
In addition to the hero content, PATRÓN also partnered with five influencers to act as Real One storytellers. They disrupted their feeds by drawing parallels between “Instagram versus reality” and driving home the additive-free messaging.They continued the momentum beyond launch by sharing a second in-feed “real” post around their interpretations on what Toasting Your Real Ones meant to them. The captions drew a parallel to the additive-free messaging and Real Ones campaign.
The hero film was launched on PATRÓN-owned channels, including IGTV, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and then three 30-second social videos were shared across channels in the week that followed. During launch week, PATRÓN content drove awareness and engagement, generating over 8.4K engagements, 550K video views, and 2.5 million impressions.
Influencers broke-through and educated key demographics with thumb-stopping real content that drove social viewership with above-industry standard engagement rates, resulting in 203K views, 429K impressions, 34K engagements and 451 site visits.
Through dedicated media outreach and a press release, PATRÓN announced the Toast Your Real Ones campaign, highlighting how PATRÓN has been and always will be additive-free. Targeting lifestyle, business, marketing and wellness-focused media, the goal was to showcase how PATRÓN is celebrating transparency through this unique campaign and tying back to PATRÓN’s unwavering commitment to craft premium tequila using only the highest-quality ingredients and without cutting corners. Dedicated media outreach announcing the Real Ones campaign resulted in 43+ million impressions and generated buzz through press release syndication, resulting in 142+ million impressions.
