Meet El Rayo’s co-founder, Tom Bishop
Last month we celebrated Tequila Day (it was on July 24th if you’re asking). Traditionally that’s meant heading to a club and making horrible faces while licking some salt and squeezing some lime.
Not this year though. This year it’s meant sipping on the beauty that is El Rayo - a tequila brand that’s redefining the category with a better product, better ethos, and better brand.
Not heard of them? Lucky for you we spoke to Tom Bishop (co-founder of El Rayo) about the company’s fresh approach to a stale industry. Heard of them? Good, you know how great they are.
Now read on to find out how they’re doing it…
Tell us about El Rayo in a nutshell…
El Rayo is a modern, all natural, 100% agave tequila that pairs perfectly with tonic - transforming the way people think and drink tequila one T&T at a time.
How did you go about launching your brand? Tell us about your initial marketing strategy and how it evolved.
We first got introduced to quality tequila from a bottle brought back from Mexico by my brother and from that first sip a spark was lit.
However, we didn’t feel that there was a brand we could truly engage with. You had two ends of the spectrum; the cheap end that relied on getting as drunk as possible as quickly as possible, then the more premium end was aloof and exclusive and about sipping tequila in armchairs and you weren't really sure if you were allowed to do it etc. We wanted to create something that was going to invite people into the category, to be the tequila to get you drinking tequila.
That’s where Tequila & Tonic comes in. It’s been a huge focal point for the brand and a great way to get new consumers to engage with tequila in an interesting but familiar way. Slowly but surely we’re getting people’s heads round the idea that tequila can be your first drink of the night not your last!
How did you establish your brand’s visual identity?
We worked with an artist based in Guadalajara (the capital of Jalisco where tequila comes from) called Mario Ballesteros and his team at Troro Pinto because it was important for us to have a Mexican hand on this.
El Rayo was designed to challenge traditional perceptions on tequila. Gone are the days of lime, salt and lazy stereotypes of sombreros - this identity does nothing to reflect the incredible vibrancy and depth of Mexico. The idea of the brand is to reinvent how you think about tequila by opening up the idea of a more modern, tasteful Mexican culture. A twist on a classic product, to attract a new generation of drinkers.
The base narrative is a fictional story about the ancient popular legend on the origins of tequila, it is a tale of discovery. A local farmer crosses his fields where he witnesses lightning striking an agave plant in the distance. He follows the burning glow and discovers the cooked agave plant, from there tequila was born. It is seen as an omen of what has happened in the past but more importantly of what is yet to come [the image was slightly inspired by Caspar David Friedrich’s painting “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog”].
We took the explorer archetype that is part of the brand’s essence and turned it into the label’s protagonist. The reference is subtle (it's a detail in the label), yet important. It creates a personal narrative that invites the consumer to walk away from the preconception of what a tequila must look like and to open their mind to a new Mexican aesthetic.
The identity was developed to merge tradition and progression. Mexican landscapes walked by farmers remind us of the stories told in small towns; legends about enlightenment sent from the sky. But the tale is spun in a modern way, both the branding and packaging are filled with hints of pop art and contemporary aesthetics. A substantial universe was applied to the whole brand system: gradients and elegant colours that blend with grainy, stamped textures. This evokes the idea of a world that is both abstract and figurative.
The intention is to create a balance between heritage, progress and endless possibility - something that speaks about Mexico today.
What’s your top piece of marketing advice?
Brands with purpose do better.
What has been your biggest marketing fail?
There’s plenty to choose from! We put a lot into a wellness festival that we thought had the potential to be great for us with our perspective on slower, more mindful tequila drinking. It was a classic case of overthinking, surprisingly not that many people at a wellness festival were interested in tequila - I think we’ve got a bit of a way to go before that happens!
Which other brand’s marketing do you like and why?
There’s loads of great brands out there at the moment, I’m really enjoying THIS’ campaigns though - always very real and evocative through interesting UGC and stunts. It helps that they have a wicked product and are redefining a massive industry but it's great to see a challenger brand just having so much fun with it - that’s what it's about at the end of the day!
If you could choose anybody in the world to be an ambassador for your brand, who would you choose and why?
The impossible question. Probably Bruce Springsteen, I mean he’s The Boss isn’t he? That might not be very on brand but fuck it.