Herdez, with BBDO San Francisco, launched Mexican is Herdez in October 2019 in the United States, a film-led campaign rooting authentic Mexican identity in
How Herdez Made Mexican Identity the Center of Its 2019 Brand Campaign
"Mexican is Herdez" is a 2019 film campaign created by BBDO San Francisco for Herdez, launched in October 2019 in the United States, positioning the brand as an authentic expression of Mexican identity, flavor, and heritage through bold visual storytelling and contemporary culture.
Herdez entered the 2019 campaign cycle with a clear ambition. Rather than simply advertising a product, the brand chose to make a cultural declaration. The campaign's title functions as both a proposition and a provocation — asserting that Mexican culinary authenticity does not merely pass through Herdez, it resides there. Launched in October 2019 and created by BBDO San Francisco, the work spans film, television, web graphics, and a lotería game, demonstrating a multi-format commitment to cultural immersion rather than conventional product promotion.
In the United States, where Mexican food occupies a central but often commercially diluted place in the consumer food landscape, Herdez chose specificity over accessibility. The campaign's creative descriptors — "loud, aromatic, vibrant, bold" and "fresh flavors with an attitude," as documented by adsoftheworld.com — signal a deliberate rejection of the softened, pan-ethnic tone common to mainstream food advertising. The work addresses Mexican Americans and multicultural consumers directly, speaking to cultural identity as a lived experience rather than a marketing demographic. By doing so, it invites a broader audience to encounter Mexican cuisine on its own terms, with Herdez positioned as the authoritative guide.
Herdez anchors its 2019 strategy in a consumer insight that reaches beyond taste preference into cultural identity. The campaign recognises that second-generation Mexican Americans and multicultural US consumers increasingly use food as a vehicle for heritage — a behaviour that purely product-led competitors have historically underserved.
In the United States, the packaged Mexican food category has grown substantially more competitive as mainstream brands such as Old El Paso and Ortega have expanded their market presence, often by adapting traditional formats to broader palates. Herdez counters this by moving in the opposite direction: sharpening its cultural credentials rather than diluting them. According to adsoftheworld.com, the campaign's creative classification is "Unique Personality Property," a strategic framing that separates brand-level identity work from product-level communication and positions "Mexican is Herdez" as a long-term platform rather than a seasonal promotion.
Horowitz Research, which tracks multicultural media and consumer behaviour in the United States, has documented the growing importance of cultural representation to Hispanic consumers' brand choices — a dynamic that BBDO San Francisco exploits structurally in this campaign. By grounding the narrative in genuine Mexican iconography and partnering with voices from within the community, Herdez signals cultural competency to consumers who can readily detect its absence. The campaign's reach extended beyond broadcast, circulating on social media well after its October 2019 launch, according to clapboard.com, indicating that its cultural resonance sustained organic engagement without paid amplification alone.
Director Courtney Phillips leads the film at the creative core of "Mexican is Herdez," bringing a visual sensibility that matches the campaign's stated ambition to be loud, aromatic, vibrant, and bold.
The production team assembles a roster of collaborators whose work reinforces the campaign's cultural specificity at every layer. Director of Photography Galo Olivares shoots imagery that combines traditional Mexican iconography — salsa ingredients, vivid colour fields, and cultural symbols — with a contemporary visual tempo that refuses nostalgia. The result, as noted by hispanicad.com, is a campaign that occupies the intersection of heritage and the present tense, never positioning Mexican culture as something to be preserved behind glass.
The soundtrack is equally deliberate. Herdez selects "Amiga Date Cuenta" by Sailorfag, a Mexican non-binary internet personality and artist, as reported by adsoftheworld.com. The choice of a reggaetón track by a non-binary Mexican artist is not incidental — it connects the campaign to a contemporary, plural vision of Mexican identity that resists monolithic representation. The music functions as cultural argument as much as sonic branding.
Typography receives the same level of intentionality. According to fontsinuse.com, designer Maxime Francout develops the campaign's typeface, "Form," which appears across television ads, web graphics, campaign materials, and the lotería game. Mixed upper- and lowercase lettering creates a visual rhythm that echoes the campaign's tonal confidence. The broader production team, documented by clapboard.com, includes producers Whitney Ferris and Margot Sanne on the agency side, with creative direction shared by Jason Moussalli and Adam Balogh under BBDO San Francisco Chief Creative Officer Matt Miller and BBDO Worldwide Chief Creative Officer David Lubars.
No independently verified performance data — such as sales lift figures, reach numbers, or brand-tracking results — for "Mexican is Herdez" is publicly available at the time of writing. What the public record does confirm, however, speaks to structural effectiveness.
According to clapboard.com, the campaign continued to circulate on social media well beyond its October 2019 launch date, suggesting that the work generated durable engagement rather than a spike-and-fade response typical of purely promotional advertising. This longevity is consistent with brand-level campaigns that successfully embed themselves in cultural conversation — a dynamic that product-focused competitors in the US packaged Mexican food category have rarely achieved through comparable creative investment.
The campaign's classification as a "Unique Personality Property" by adsoftheworld.com reflects an industry recognition that the work establishes a replicable brand platform rather than a one-time execution. The multi-format deployment — spanning film, television, web graphics, and a lotería game — distributes the cultural argument across touchpoints in a way that reinforces rather than repeats the core message. In the United States, where brand trust among Hispanic consumers is strongly correlated with perceived cultural authenticity, according to Horowitz Research, the structural choices embedded in this campaign represent a measurable strategic asset even where specific performance metrics are not disclosed. The Clapboard Score for "Mexican is Herdez" is not available at this time.
"Mexican is Herdez" is a 2019 film campaign by BBDO San Francisco positioning Herdez as an authentic expression of Mexican identity in the United States. Launched in October 2019, it spans film, television, web graphics, and a lotería game, using bold cultural imagery and the reggaetón track "Amiga Date Cuenta" by Mexican artist Sailorfag.
Courtney Phillips directed the film at the centre of the Mexican is Herdez campaign. Phillips worked alongside Director of Photography Galo Olivares, with creative direction from Jason Moussalli and Adam Balogh, and overall creative leadership from BBDO San Francisco Chief Creative Officer Matt Miller and BBDO Worldwide Chief Creative Officer David Lubars.
Herdez used "Amiga Date Cuenta" by Sailorfag in the 2019 campaign. Sailorfag is a Mexican non-binary internet personality and artist, and the reggaetón track connects the campaign to a contemporary, plural vision of Mexican identity, according to adsoftheworld.com.
BBDO San Francisco created Mexican is Herdez for the Herdez brand. The campaign launched in October 2019 in the United States, according to clapboard.com. It was published as a film-led, multi-format campaign spanning television, digital web graphics, and a branded lotería game designed to celebrate Mexican cultural heritage.
Herdez differentiates from competitors such as Old El Paso and Ortega by sharpening its cultural credentials rather than adapting to mainstream palates. The campaign targets Mexican Americans and multicultural consumers through genuine iconography and community-rooted music, a strategy documented as a Unique Personality Property approach by adsoftheworld.com.
Designer Maxime Francout developed the typeface "Form" for Mexican is Herdez, according to fontsinuse.com. The typeface appeared across television ads, web graphics, campaign materials, and the branded lotería game. Mixed upper- and lowercase lettering created a visual rhythm consistent with the campaign's bold, culturally confident creative tone.
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