Pi-Consulting

Sometimes a whole product sector mutates as a result of fallout from a deliberate marketing ploy. Lessons can invariably be learned.

The tequila story is one such parable for marketers, one of those examples of how, if you listen very carefully, you can actually hear the consumer talking. He/she will probably tell you when you’re drifting off-track and what to do about it, provided you (a) read your market research – sounds a bit like “eat your greens”, doesn’t it? – and (b) avoid the fatal temptation of assuming that the consumer is an impressionable idiot who will buy pretty much anything if your advertising tells them enough times that they want it. To update the famous words of David Ogilvy, “The consumer is not a moron; he — or she — is your Significant Other”. (Nothing if not politically correct, this website).
The background. Tequila is made from the fermented juice of the agave plant, specifically “Agave Azul” or blue agave, a rather elegant kind of star-shaped spiky cactus. The product name comes from the little town of Tequila in the Mexican state of Jalisco. From the beginning a system like the French ‘appellation controlée’ operated, ie. under Mexican law the product had to made the right way, from the right ingredients, within a small designated production area which favoured agave cultivation.

Over time more and more of ‘tequileros’ got established. Some became big-scale producers, most others remained little more than family-run ‘artisan businesses’. For years most tequila consumption was in Mexico itself. Production tended to be limited, because the agave plant takes a long time to reach maturity. The finer tequilas are aged (añejo) or “rested” (reposado).

If it’s the good stuff, dry, aromatic and delicate, you wouldn’t want to spoil the tequila experience by anaesthetising your tongue first with salt and lemon. Instead you would sip it straight, in a shot glass. (And you can certainly forget all the mythic macho twaddle about worms in the bottom of the bottle. That’s mescal, a whole different drink).

Everything went fine until tequila started to be adopted by image-conscious young drinkers in the USA and Europe. The global liquor empires sniffed the air, smelled an opportunity, and promptly went down to Mexico to buy a tequilero or two. Their first question was “Hey, Hoe-zay or whatever your name is, how can we produce more of this stuff?”.

You can imagine what followed. “Well, señor, we can’t. It will take years to grow more agave. You’ll just have to sell what we’re making”. “What? You’re kidding me, right? No way, José. You’re gonna have to bulk it out with something else”. And so it was that some modestly-priced and even mid-priced tequilas started getting cut with sugar-based alcohols, which had never seen a cactus in their sweet, sticky lives. The Mexican government, perhaps incautiously, agreed to relax the official standards in the interests of meeting world demand. Thus it was that a waiting world was introduced to the ‘Friday-night special’ tequila brands beloved of students and clubbers all over the Northern Hemisphere. If you’ve ever overdone it on one of these popular products, you will already be familiar with the morning-after feeling, rather like finding that fifty yards of asbestos cavity-wall insulation has been packed into your skull with a jack-hammer.

Changes this big produce changes of perception. The good news was that more and more consumers became familiar with tequila in one form or another. However, the overall reputation of tequila as a product, at least in export markets, began to slip. Aficionados of the high-grade original tequilas started expressing their dismay at the idea that all tequila might end up becoming ‘popularized’ — or in their opinion debased — in this way.

But the story has a happy ending. Pretty soon the top-end tequilas came back, with “100% Agave” blazoned on their labels, and their delicate flavour and user-friendly morning-after characteristics intact. Mexicans have rediscovered a pride in their national drink. Scarcity has certainly driven up prices for the better brands, but judging by sales trends, the real enthusiasts don’t seem to mind. A classic case of premium product redux.

¡Salud!