For many Mexican brands, Cinco de Mayo is the critical moment of the year. Cholula wanted to build relevance and purchase preference during the Cinco de Mayo media opportunity to showcase the three pillars of its brand positioning: Matriarchy, Flavor, and Mexican Authenticity. However, showing up differently and gaining media attention amidst a crowded date like Cinco de Mayo is a challenging feat. Cholula aimed to target Gen Pop for Mexican food, breakfast, and brunch occasions supporting sales during the Cinco de Mayo opportunity.
Claiming authenticity is challenging for a brand: it requires continuous revision and iron commitment to principles. As Mexican authentic, Cholula could not promote an inauthentic Mexican celebration like Cinco de Mayo, which most Americans think is Mexican Independence Day, when in actuality it is not, neither is a date celebrated in Mexico. Leveraging that misconception as cultural insight, the strategy to differentiate Cholula on Cinco de Mayo was clear: standing up for Mexican authenticity and educate Americans on DE&I. The brand would do that driving the attention from Cinco de Mayo to a beloved, authentically Mexican day, Dia de las Madres (Mexican Mother’s Day) which was later that same week. Additionally, this pivot would cement the Matriarchy positioning and, businesswise, triple the purchase opportunity from one day, Cinco de Mayo (May 5,) to three including Mexican Mother's day (May 10) and American Mother's day, falling in the middle.
On Cinco de Mayo we partnered with Jessica Marie Garcia, a first-time mother, and went to El Coyote, one of Los Angeles’ busiest Mexican restaurant/bars and sent partiers home to celebrate their mamas- by flying them home to cook brunch for Mother’s Day/Dia de las Madres.
We earned over 275 million media impressions across 390 unique media placements and over 15 million impressions on social.
Visitors to Cholula.com during the activation timeline spent an average of over 2 minutes on the site, a 125% improvement over the site average. And sales increased by 14.4% year over year.
But most importantly, the Mother of Sauce didn’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We celebrated Cinco de Madre and made some mamás’ days.
