Dos Equis is bringing again “The Most Fascinating Man within the World,” the enduring model character and marketing campaign that it sundown in 2016, per particulars shared with Advertising Dive. The unique marketing campaign ran for a decade and helped to greater than triple the dimensions of the beer model, per father or mother firm Heineken USA’s inside gross sales quantity knowledge.
“It was so iconic, such part of the model and we felt it nonetheless had a job to play within the present day, regardless that it had not been round for 10 years,” Heineken USA CMO Alison Payne mentioned of the marketing campaign.
The character returned in unbranded teaser spots throughout faculty soccer playoff video games on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9 earlier than the launch this week of a teaser marketing campaign throughout social media platforms, together with Instagram and LinkedIn. The character, now dubbed the least most attention-grabbing man on the planet, is proven to have been dwelling a boring life filled with jigsaw puzzles, plain yogurt and beige clothes within the suburbs.
The marketing campaign will proceed in the course of the School Soccer Championship recreation on Jan. 19. A 60-second spot explains how the character misplaced his edge — by bumping his head and getting amnesia after coming back from house — and the way he returns to his former glory after discovering a Dos Equis behind his fridge. The character, nonetheless performed by actor Jonathan Goldsmith, will even take part in a “sailgate” activation on a yacht in the course of the recreation.
After his return, the Most Fascinating Man will proceed to seem as a part of Dos Equis’ new “Keep Thirsty” model platform, in a brand new advert in the course of the NFC Championship Recreation on Jan. 25 and all year long. The marketing campaign was led creatively by LePub NY, in collaboration with Le Truc, and consists of Dentsu on media and TAG on social media. Activations are being dealt with by Amplified whereas PR and influencers fall beneath MBooth, with extra influencer work offered by Influential.
Identical man, completely different instances
Payne, who started as CMO for Heineken USA in January 2025, could be very accustomed to Dos Equis: The chief led Heineken’s Mexican beverage portfolio from 2018 to 2021, and oversaw post-Most Fascinating Man campaigns like 2018’s “Maintain It Interesante” effort.
The return of the Most Fascinating Man arrives as nostalgia — for cultural touchstones in addition to beloved advert campaigns — stays a frequent technique for entrepreneurs seeking to reconnect with previous followers and make new ones. For Dos Equis, the character is returning to a unique world from the one he left in 2016, the place the social-digital media panorama has exploded in dimension and scope.
“We had been very aware of the truth that it wasn’t nearly urgent repeat on what we had earlier than. We now have a 10-year archive of improbable stuff, however it was about modernizing it,” Payne mentioned. “It is going to play much more within the social house. With the ‘I do not all the time… however after I do, I desire Dos Equis’ line, we are able to lean into no matter’s taking place culturally. We now can play a way more energetic function.”
Additionally informing Dos Equis’ resolution to revive the marketing campaign was the character’s enduring reputation: 84% of shoppers uncovered to the unique marketing campaign need to see it return, with 82% sustaining there may be nothing comparable within the class, per the model’s survey knowledge. That reputation is even seen in audiences that weren’t of ingesting age in the course of the marketing campaign’s authentic run, because the character has persevered in memes and as part of web tradition.
“We retested the promoting and it had like 97% model recall, and that is actually pushed by the truth that he lived on in memes, and that well-known line turned half of popular culture,” Payne mentioned. “We imagine that the time was proper to to convey him again, however we’re not doing so in a really regular approach. As Dos Equis, we all the time ask ourselves, ‘May some other beer model do that?’ And the reply needs to be no.”
Excessive hopes regardless of headwinds
The Most Fascinating Man is returning at a tough time for Dos Equis, father or mother Heineken and an total beer class dealing with headwinds. Heineken CEO and Chairman Dolf van den Brink this week introduced plans to go away the corporate on the finish of Might, simply three months after the beer large introduced an expansive reorganization plan.
Nonetheless, beer stays a staple of U.S. households, and whereas the class is down, imported premium beer, significantly Mexican imports like Dos Equis, are the quickest rising phase, in line with Payne, who has excessive hopes for the brand new marketing campaign.
“It’s honest to say, [the brand’s] promoting bought a bit of bit secure, a bit of bit boring. This [campaign] actually does one thing completely different,” the chief mentioned. “Ten years in the past, it actually broke all of the codes of beer class promoting — it wasn’t a bloke standing round a barbecue.”
The model plans to proceed bringing irreverence and sudden activations to the class, in every little thing from adverts to social content material to its point-of-sale supplies. And its pitch of Dos Equis as a beer for social gatherings with attention-grabbing individuals is bolstered by the advertising of sister model Heineken, which has pushed for shoppers to place down know-how and meet in actual life in a sequence of attention-grabbing campaigns.
“With Dos Equis, we’re encouraging individuals to step out of their consolation zone a bit of to have a life filled with tales you could take again to the bar and inform your folks,” Payne mentioned. “He isn’t simply the Most Fascinating Man: He is very magnetic. Folks need to be having a beer with him on the bar, as a result of he has a story-rich life, and that is what is creating actual life connections.”
