Package Design - March 2014 - 16

A Modern
Tradition
In a crowded and growing market, a tequila brand owner faced
the challenge of updating bottle packaging without alienating the
product's core fan base.
By Danielle Beurteaux

T

equila el Jimador is beloved for
both its support of Mexico's
national soccer team and the
artisan agave harvesting process
used to make the tequila. Creating the
drink is a labor-intensive process-the
blue agave from which it's made is
manually harvested by jimadores, hence
the brand name. "The jimadores are the
men who literally bring tequila to the
world," explains Lisa Hunter, associate
global marketing director at brand
owner Brown-Forman. "Agave is a
hand-harvested product and these are
craftsmen who pass down the arts of
cultivating agave from father to son."
With tequila's popularity growing in
the U.S. and international spirit markets, as consumers are developing a
more sophisticated appreciation of the
drink, says Hunter. They also are beginning to expect more contemporary pack16

MaRCH 2014

aging. With an eye on better placing
Tequila el Jimador to capture some of
that growth outside of Mexico, the
brand team sought to create an updated
package that would speak better to premium buyers. "We wanted to remain a
modern, relevant brand and highlight
the quality of liquid in the bottle
because el Jimador has the reputation as
a high-quality tequila for the price
point," says Hunter. "But we didn't want
that accessible price point to take any of
the quality cues away from the bottle
and away from the brand proposition."
Brown-Forman's team called in
brand design firm Cue to discuss how to
freshen up the packaging while keeping
the brand's strongest elements and identity recognition. "We were charged with
trying to balance and accommodate two
situations," says Alan Colvin, principal
and creative director at Cue. "The one

in Mexico where it's the largest selling
tequila and a beloved brand, and in the
United States, where it needed to feel a
bit more premium and not get lost
amongst so many different [tequila]
brands."
Although the existing packaging did
use some premium cues, they felt the
design needed to be modernized. They
looked at elements that would bring a
more up-to-date look, including graphics, bolder watermarks, and colors.
Another discussion was how much they
should highlight the role of the jimador.
"A lot of the work we did was in terms of
branding," says Colvin. "We really
needed to come up with the best way to
depict the jimador and define his role in
the branding."
The design team decided to highlight
the jimador figure in a subtle and elegant way, devoting the top half of the
Package Design - March 2014

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