Tequila business comes to Minneapolis agencies

Before you know it, Minneapolis might be known as "tequila town," at least in the advertising world.

Two Minneapolis marketing firms have been retained to promote brands of upscale tequilas for Kentucky-based distillery giant Brown-Forman.

The brand design shop Cue has redesigned the bottle for el Jimador Tequila, the top selling tequila in Mexico, in hopes of making similar inroads in the U.S. market.

Ad agency Fallon, meanwhile, is in the middle of ad production for Tequila Herradura, a 144-year-old handcrafted version of the agave plant's fermented specialty.

With 1,300 tequila brands in the marketplace, advertising and design can be critical to success with consumers.

"It goes back to brand values," said Ed Mathie, Cue managing director. "What is in the mind of the target consumer in Mexico and the audience here?"

Mathie said the tequila demographic tends to skew young, although older consumers are revisiting their drink of years gone by.

The new el Jimador bottle has a smaller label, allowing the purchaser to see more of the contents, which is common with premium brands, Mathie said. The illustration on the bottle of a farmer, or el jimador, harvesting an agave plant is etched, giving the bottle a more sophisticated look.

Fallon was named global agency of record for Herradura in January and expects the first ads for the premium tequila to start running in the spring.

Like el Jimador, Herradura is hoping to capture more market share in the U.S., where sales of upper-end tequilas have grown at a 13 percent pace over the past three years, according to industry data. That growth is expected to continue.

"Mexico has remained secret to most people," said Jeff Kling, Fallon's chief creative officer, who promised that Herradura "will blow people's minds."

Fallon also is agency of record for Brown-Forman's upscale Woodford Reserve bourbon. Cue has a history with Brown-Forman, as well, most notably with the 2011 redesign of the distiller's best-known brand, Jack Daniel's, as well as new packages for brands including Southern Comfort and Canadian Mist.