Screw the future.
That’s the premise of Jose Cuervo’s new brand campaign out of Crispin Porter & Bogusky Los Angeles, its first after reteaming with the agency last year. On Sunday, the tequila giant debuted a blockbuster ad directed by Rattling Stick’s Ringan Ledwidge showing the patrons of a local bar awaiting the end of days: a tornado blusters through the town, carrying papers and people with it, while a newscaster announces that civilization’s demise is nigh.
As the rest of the world runs for their lives, the bar-goers make the most of theirs. The bartender pours shots of Cuervo, a man plays Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never” on the jukebox and couples tango while destruction around them ensues. The neon logo and tagline read : “Cuervo — Tomorrow Is Overrated.”
Cuervo had previously worked with CP&B from 2009-2011 when it was distributed in the U.S. by Diageo. After the account moved to Proximo Spirits in 2013, McCann New York picked it up, and then resigned it in late 2015. The 222-year-old tequila launched a successful IPO last month, raising more than $900 million. It’s a ripe time for Cuervo to reassert itself as category leader, especially when messaging of competitors has increasingly seen a trend of “blandification,” said Daniel Mandelbaum, group brand director at Jose Cuervo.
From that brief, the team at Crispin came up with the “Tomorrow Is Overrated” tagline. “That came out of the idea that when the Cuervo comes out, you are really starting something,” said CP&B Los Angeles Chief Creative Officer Kevin Jones. “It’s a bit of a commitment to having fun, so we thought through the notion of what is your reason for not busting out the Cuervo, if it’s what awaits you tomorrow — sitting in a cubicle, doing laundry — then ‘tomorrow’ might not be a great excuse for putting off tonight.”