The odds-on favorite to succeed Floyd Mayweather as boxing’s top pay-per-view draw is about to get a boost from Tecate, the Mexican beer brand that long has used boxing as the centerpiece of a strategy to reach U.S. Hispanics.
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, the Mexican middleweight who sold 900,000 pay-per-views in a decision victory against Miguel Cotto in November, concluded shooting last month on a TV spot for Tecate that will run nationally in both English and Spanish beginning in April.
Slated to break during the run-up to his May 7 PPV against Amir Khan, the TV spot will feature Alvarez prepping to enter the ring for a fight, blinged out in the fashion of retired pay-per-view king Mayweather. Reminded of his Mexican roots by the black eagle of Tecate’s logo, Alvarez sheds the flashy trappings and enters the ring as he has before.
“It’s all about authenticity,” said Gustavo Guerra, brand director for Tecate, the leading seller in the Mexican portfolio of Heineken USA. “Even though Canelo and Tecate are coming to this country and starting to become acculturated, they are not losing those origins.”
While Tecate has been a prominent sponsor in boxing since launching the brand in the U.S. in 2007, this is the first time it has featured a fighter in a TV spot.
“One of the things that this says is that Canelo has arrived; Canelo is the man today in the sport,” said Oscar De La Hoya, Alvarez’s promoter, whose Golden Boy Promotions company last month worked with Los Angeles-based agency Touch Point Marketing to lock down a two-year deal with Tecate that includes sponsorship of at least two pay-per-views, eight premium-cable fights and up to 27 smaller, local shows around which Tecate can activate each year. “He’s just beginning his career as a superstar. … He’s already a [Mexican] superstar, and he’s soon to be a crossover superstar thanks to Tecate.”
The move to English also is a marked departure. When Tecate got into boxing, its tactics were focused entirely on unacculturated Hispanics, recent arrivals to the U.S. who got almost all of their media in Spanish.
Three years ago, the brand began to alter that strategy around Tecate Light, airing radio spots in English to reach Hispanic millennial males, who typically are bicultural but prefer to consume media in English.
Last year, it rolled out its first TV spots in English, with a “Born Bold” campaign that unified both Tecate, still the stronger seller among over-35 consumers, and Tecate Light.
The shift was driven by the demos of the Hispanic market. While about half are newcomers, the other half is bicultural and bilingual. Not only is the bicultural segment growing faster, it also includes a slice of Hispanic males who drink more beer than other Hispanic males.
“That bicultural, male consumer is really the sweet spot for us,” Guerra said. “The newcomer aspires to be bicultural and to have a bicultural friend always near him. Whatever this bicultural guy is doing, the others will follow. We need to move into English because we need to attract that bicultural consumer.”
Along with the TV spots, which will run into the early summer and then return again when Alvarez fights in September, Tecate plans a digital campaign, as well as sweepstakes and retail promotions, the latter of which the brand always emphasizes as it pushes for shelf space in advance of the Cinco de Mayo holiday.
Its retail promotion behind the May 7 fight will be available to outlets in every state in which Tecate is distributed, covering a footprint of about 10,000 stores, Guerra said. Alvarez will be the focus of all point-of-sale materials. Tecate plans to use him as its brand ambassador around the sport, regardless of whether he’s fighting on a show or not.
“The No. 1 thing we said, this year in our approach, even when we are supporting another fight, Saul is going to be front and center,” Guerra said. “Saul is front and center of every touch point. Our retail promotions … will first be about Canelo, and then about the fight.”
