At a time when Gen Z is driving a significant decline in alcohol consumption and category growth, Bacardí sought to connect with young drinkers through culture, heritage, and identity. The focus was on building long-term brand affinity with one of the fastest-growing and most influential consumer groups in the U.S. — young Hispanics — by doing more than generating short-term awareness. Bacardí needed to earn a place inside Gen Z culture in a way that felt authentic, entertaining, and never interruptive.
Using Halloween and Día de Muertos as a key connection point, Bacardí, My Code, and OMD created a new Halloween content tradition built for the always-online generation. The core cultural insight was that Gen Z’s biggest fears today are not ghosts or monsters, but digital shame, social surveillance, and the permanence of life online: the accidental double tap, the unread message, the family comment that never goes away….
The objective was to transform these hyper-specific, painfully relatable anxieties into cinematic horror, treating small digital moments with the gravity of a gothic ghost story. Instead of leading with product, Bacardí became part of the narrative itself, launching an original branded IP designed to demonstrate cultural fluency and return year over year as a recurring Halloween franchise.
“Whispers From The Feed” launched as an original, three-episode social-first horror anthology, released throughout October across @bacardi, @remezcla, and host Harvey Guillén’s channels on Instagram and TikTok. From the outset, the team aligned around a single creative mandate: if Bacardí wanted Gen Z’s attention, the work had to function as true entertainment.
The creative development began with cultural observation and proprietary research into Gen Z and multicultural audiences, which revealed that many of this generation’s deepest fears are experienced in digital spaces rather than physical ones. This insight shaped the monologue-driven horror format, allowing everyday online anxieties to be elevated into cinematic storytelling that felt both exaggerated and painfully real.
Casting Harvey Guillén as the series’ host was a foundational decision. His background in theater, comedy, and performance, combined with his Latinidad and ability to move fluidly between English, Spanish, and Spanglish, gave the series a distinct voice and cultural authenticity. Rather than playing a character within the stories, Harvey became the haunted narrator, speaking directly to camera and channeling multiple characters through performance.
Each episode was fully scripted around a single Gen Z fear and structured as a complete horror monologue with a closing moral. Brand integration was executed through custom “Presented by Bacardí” branded framing, one tailored cocktail recipe per episode, and aesthetic shots of bottles, glassware, and ingredients.
The visual world was guided by a custom production design concept called “Victorian Piñata,” blending classic gothic horror with Día de Muertos iconography to reflect how many Latines in the U.S. experience Halloween. It came to life through the small details—from furniture to wardrobe to glassware, candles, flowers, and set dressing. Directed by Tribeca-recognized filmmaker Kantú Lentz, the production brought cinematic craft and theatrical performance to a social-first format.
The primary challenge was creating alcohol marketing that Gen Z would choose to watch in a crowded feed. The team overcame this by centering culture, performance, and narrative first.
The results of “Whispers From The Feed” demonstrated that culture-led, entertainment-first alcohol marketing can successfully engage Gen Z in a challenging category environment. The program delivered 10.6 million impressions across Instagram and TikTok, establishing strong visibility for a long-form, story-driven social series.
The campaign resonated deeply with Hispanic audiences, driving significant lifts in brand favorability and purchase intent (70% and 50% higher than industry benchmark, respectively), while strengthening emotional connections and enhancing brand recall with Bacardí. The content's uniqueness rating was 20% above the industry benchmark.
More importantly, the campaign met its core strategic objective of establishing “Whispers From The Feed” as a scalable branded IP. Rather than functioning as a single seasonal execution, the series created a repeatable platform designed to return year over year as a Halloween franchise.
We consider the effort a success not only because of its reach, but because it repositioned Bacardí as a cultural participant in how Gen Z Hispanics experience Halloween. The work proved that when alcohol brands lead with entertainment, cultural insight, and authentic representation, they can build relevance and long-term brand equity with a generation that is redefining the category.
