USA. Bacardi Global Travel Retail is celebrating a successful high-profile promotion for Patrón Tequila’s sponsorship of the Oracle Red Bull Racing team at Miami International Airport with Duty Free Americas.
The brand has formed a close link with Formula 1 since becoming the racing team’s tequila partner and first-ever official global spirits partner.
The promotion, which ran throughout April and May, featured a high-visibility activation with impactful branding, signage and traveller interaction to bring the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix experience to travellers.
The campaign visuals and brand messaging, including the tagline ‘Driven by Passion. Proudly Mexican’, highlighted Mexico’s renowned driver Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez.
Perez well represents Patrón, having been born in the Jalisco state, home to Patrón Tequila Hacienda.
The high-octane pop-up experience included a Patrón tasting bar, which featured a contemporary circular structure of pale latticework in white, green and gold tones, resembling the colours, shape and texture of the piña of the agave plant.
The bar offered a range of premium tequila expressions from the brand including Silver, Reposado and Añejo, allowing travellers to enjoy samples of straight tastings. Guests also had a taste of pre-batched cocktails, including Silver – Classic Margarita; Reposado – Paloma; and Añejo – Highball.
To underline the brand’s prestige profile, its two most-recent innovations – the prestige silver tequila and El Cielo and the luxury reposado tequila El Alto – were offered in the ideal straight serve.
Travellers were greeted by brand ambassadors, who provided an introduction to the range and guided tasting sessions.
To promote its sustainability drive, the brand offered a range of branded Hydroflask water bottles and tumblers and Agave mugs.
Other interactive elements at the pop-up included the timed digital response game ‘Test Your Reflexes like an F1 Master’, where travellers could check their hand-eye coordination.
Bacardi Global Travel Retail Regional Director, America Geoff Biggs said: “We are thrilled to have brought this high-octane excitement to Miami International Airport in celebrating Patrón’s authentic partnership with the Oracle Red Bull team, sharing the exhilaration of Formula 1 and the category-leading taste of Patrón.
“From harvesting the agave to the signing of the finished bottle, all Patrón tequila is proudly still made by hand, a process that has been used since the brand’s inception just as, no matter what innovations the technicians and engineers develop in Formula 1 racing, the heart of the sport remains in the hands of the driver.
“As the world’s number one super-premium tequila, including a 47% share of global travel market share, Patrón has defined and ignited the Super Premium Tequila category and remains a significant contributor in the premiumisation of spirits in global travel retail.
“With its global positioning and our commitment to such innovative and engaging large-scale activations, Patrón is the brand that can energise the whole category. Within the Americas, passenger traffic levels led the global recovery and have already soared well beyond pre-crisis levels of 2019, particularly in the US market. Consumers are keen to travel and are eagerly exploring our brands.” ✈
