

The Quirky Genius of the Dos Equis Ad Campaign - splat
http://www.slate.com/id/2218849/

======
ramidarigaz
Some friends and I once devised a Dos Equis ad campaign. Never did anything
with it, but it was awesome.

Goes something like this:

 _Wide sweeping view of a town in Mexico, dusty and full of life_

Voice (singing): Dos Equis, a Mexican beer

Voice: Ray, the guy I buy it from

Ray: Hola!

Voice: Me, the guy, I buy beer for

Voice: Far, a long way to the bar

 _sweeping shot of the town_

Voice: So, I think I'll have a beer

 _Ray offers a beer_

Voice: La, lalalalalala, HAVE ANOTHER BEER

 _A few people have gathered around Ray_

 _Tea vendor offers tea to the camera_

Voice: Tea? No thanks, I'll have a beer

Voice: That brings us back to....

 _A small crowd has gathered, all singing now_

Large chorus: Dos Equis, a Mexican beer

 _Shot of Mexican flag_

LC: Ray, the guy I buy it from

 _Crowd, with Ray at the front shouts_

Crowd: HOLA!!!

LC: Me, the guy, I buy beer for

LC: Far, a long way to the bar

 _By now, the entire town is partying_

LC: So, I think I'll have a beer

 _Sound of hundreds of tankards clinking_

LC: La, lalalalalala, HAVE ANOTHER BEER

 _Crowd cheers_ _Crowd mocks tea vendor_

LC: Tea? No thanks, I'll have a beer

LC: That brings us back to....

 _Fireworks start going off_

Entire Town: Dos

 _fireworks_

ET: Equis,

 _fireworks_

ET: a Mexican beer

 _fireworks_

ET: Ray, the guy I buy it from

 _Ray, completely naked, jumps off the roof using a Mexican flag as a
parachute, screaming_

Ray: HOLAAAAAAAA!!!

ET: Me, the guy, I buy beer for

ET: Far, a long way to the bar

 _Entire town marching down the road, out of the town_

ET: So, I think I'll have a beer

 _Crowd cheers_

 _Fireworks_

ET: La, lalalalalala, HAVE ANOTHER BEER

 _Crowd cheers louder_

 _More fireworks_

ET: Tea? No thanks, I'll have a beer

 _Tea vendor throws a bucket full of tea over the crowd_

ET: That brings us back to....

 _Town explodes, fireworks everywhere, buildings shattering into shards that
turn into splashes of beer. A huge column of smoke now rises where the town
used to be. Green flashes are seen in the cloud of smoke, and the Millennium
Falcon swoops out of the smoke, with two Tie fighters hot on its tail._

 _Fade to logo_

~~~
jrockway
I skipped most of the middle, but the ending did not disappoint!

------
seasoup
This has got to be my current favorite Ad campaign, using Chuck Norris style
one liners. I want to be "the most interesting man in the world" I should
drink Dos Equis.

~~~
joeyo
It's also interesting that he always says, "I don't always drink beer, but..."
I suppose that they are targeting men that mostly drink hard liquor?

~~~
dmoney
Hard liquor or alcopops. I read it as targeting men who don't really like
beer, but drink it sometimes to fit in. "Drink Dos Equis: it doesn't suck as
much as other beers."

~~~
gaius
Advertising to men who drink alcopops or cider is very different, it's much
less traditionally masculine and much more, ermm, metrosexual. I don't imagine
there's much crossover.

------
joez
The ad campaign does flow through well on radio. I heard this one the other
day and I knew right away that it was a Dos Equis.

"Most songs about love are written for him, about him, or by him.

He'd never initiate a conversation about the weather, even in a typhoon.

He's against cruelty to animals, but isn't afraid to issue a stern warning.

Whatever side of the tracks he's currently on is the right side. If he crossed
them, he would still be the right side.

He won the same lifetime achievement award twice."

------
ramchip
It's refreshing to see a beer ad that doesn't take the viewer for an idiot.
What we see here in Montreal right now is just ridiculous:

<http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/1517/bud1t.jpg>

~~~
domodomo
America exports Budweiser to other countries? I'm so sorry.

~~~
mahmud
Bud tastes way better in Prague though.

~~~
paulbaumgart
They actually sell it in the US as Czechvar- one of my favorites,
incidentally.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechvar>

------
Gibbon
The Dos Equis ads never fail to amuse me on account of the alleged college
application essay I read sometime in the early days of the web.

EDIT: Apparently written, in 1990, by musician and author, Hugh Gallagher, as
a satiric personal essay turned internet meme.

3A Essay

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been
known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient
in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I
write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread
water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot
bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute
Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and
an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a
small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play
bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous
documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I
enjoy urban hang-gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical
appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics
worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't
perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller
number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey
with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat.400. My deft floral
arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children
trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once
read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had
time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact
location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several
covert operations for the CIA.

I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in
Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a
small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends,
to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I
discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made
extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed
prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving
competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played
Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet been to college.

------
martythemaniak
I have to say I love this line of commercials and it actually works. Last time
I was at the beer store, I asked for a Dos Equis specifically because I'd
never tried it and this commercial made me aware of it.

Alas, they were out of stock.

~~~
JimmyL
It's somewhat unfortunate that the beer is so terrible - like I'd forgotten
how much I don't like Dos Equis until I ordered one (as a result of the ad).

------
eshelt
Although I've never been a fan of the beer, I love the marketing tactics Dos
Equis took here. The humor is very relevant, as mentioned earlier, to the
"Chuck Norris doesn't breathe, he holds air hostage" approach. These jokes are
still is extremely popular, and Dos Equis was creative enough to put their own
spin on it. If they got us all talking about it, then they must have done
something right. I just hope they don't play it out like the Geico did with
the cavemen.

------
absconditus
While I do like their commercials, Dos Equis is a horrible product. Why put so
much money and effort into avoiding having to make a better product?

~~~
look_lookatme
Horrible product? Really? Have you had much Mexican beer? It's no worse than
Modelo or Tecate or Pacifico. Much, much better than Corona.

~~~
absconditus
All Mexican beer is bad. It isn't their forte.

~~~
eds
Of course, Dos Equis was created by a German.

------
omouse
The great thing is that they can hit the radio well, and their websites are
great: <http://dosequis.com/academy/>

------
madair
He _is_ the larger than life fictional character that we _sarcastically_ refer
to Chuck Norris as.

