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Jose Cuervo Invites America to Shake Up the Margarita
Jose Cuervo's Cuervo Marg Shake-Up is a 2022 experiential, film, and integrated media campaign that invited consumers across the United States to invent a new margarita flavor using Cuervo base flavors, trending ingredients, and a wildcard element, with a grand prize of $100,000 and a guaranteed spot on retail shelves.
Created by San Francisco-based agency Mekanism, the campaign ran from May 9 through June 30, 2022, directing participants to a dedicated microsite at cuervomargshakeup.com. The entry mechanic was deliberately accessible: follow four steps, combine ingredients, and submit an original flavor concept. Twelve finalists were selected from all valid entries. Each finalist received one thousand dollars to fund a year's worth of authentic Cuervo margaritas, and every participant — regardless of placement — received a five-dollar Drizly coupon redeemable toward their next Cuervo margarita purchase.
The grand prize extended well beyond cash. The winning flavor was to be produced and released on store shelves, giving one consumer a direct line from home bartender to commercial product developer. That retail release promise elevated the campaign above a conventional sweepstakes and positioned Jose Cuervo as a brand genuinely willing to hand creative authority to its audience. In the United States, where tequila had become the fastest-growing major spirits category, the timing was precise and the mechanic shrewdly matched to the cultural moment.
The Cuervo Marg Shake-Up drew its strategic logic from two converging data streams. According to a Drizly report titled "One Year Post-Lockdown: The New Normal of Bev Alc," the spirits category increased its share of beverage alcohol sales from 39 percent in February 2020 to 43 percent in February 2021, overtaking wine as the most popular category in the United States. Simultaneously, interest in at-home cocktail-making skyrocketed, according to a Google Trends report that tracked search behaviour throughout the same period.
Mekanism and Jose Cuervo translated that dual insight into a campaign mechanic that rewarded exactly what consumers were already doing: experimenting at home. Rather than positioning the brand as the authority on the perfect margarita, the campaign positioned fans as co-creators, making brand participation feel like self-expression rather than passive consumption. In the United States tequila and mezcal market, which generated approximately six billion dollars in revenue in 2022, up 17.2 percent year over year according to marketwatchmag.com, the fight for consumer loyalty was intensifying rapidly.
Jose Cuervo's competitive context sharpens that urgency. Patrón, owned by Bacardi, had spent years occupying the premium end of the US tequila shelf, while Don Julio, distributed by Diageo, aggressively courted the same aspirational drinker. Jose Cuervo's response was not to compete on prestige alone but to compete on participation — converting brand affinity into creative engagement. Per Cuervo Com Mx, Jose Cuervo held an 18.3 percent share of global tequila volume in 2022, representing approximately 9.2 million cases, and grew year over year by 15.9 percent, giving the brand momentum it wanted to sustain through consumer-facing activations precisely like this one.
The Cuervo Marg Shake-Up operated across experiential, film, and integrated media formats, a combination that gave a sweepstakes mechanic the reach and narrative weight of a brand campaign. Executive Creative Director David Horowitz of Mekanism oversaw the creative output alongside Creative Director Victor Monclus. Associate Creative Director Andreas Aristedes, Senior Copywriter Alex Lee, and Senior Art Director Antonia Berlinger shaped the campaign's visual and verbal identity, with Design Director Philip Cheaney leading the design system.
The film component anchored the campaign's emotional pitch. Rather than simply explaining contest rules, the creative team used video to dramatise the act of invention — framing the everyday home bartender as someone with a genuinely marketable palate. That framing was essential: the $100,000 prize demanded credibility, and the film execution supplied it, giving the sweepstakes the production quality of a brand launch rather than a promotional add-on.
Managing Director Tor Edwards and Group Brand Director Jonica Reed led account operations, with Brand Supervisor Barbara Bell maintaining day-to-day stewardship. The integrated media layer extended the campaign's reach across paid and owned channels in the United States, ensuring the microsite drove sustained traffic across the full seven-week entry window rather than spiking at launch and fading. The Drizly partnership was also a deliberate creative and commercial decision: by routing the participant reward through an e-commerce platform, the campaign generated a measurable purchase signal at every level of entry, not just among finalists. According to the campaign archive recorded on Clapboard, the hero film accumulated approximately 2.93 million views, a figure that reflects the integrated media investment behind it.
The Cuervo Marg Shake-Up earns a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100, reflecting a campaign that executed a commercially intelligent mechanic with genuine creative discipline across multiple formats. The score acknowledges both the strength of the consumer insight and the structural risk of a seven-week sweepstakes that required sustained audience attention to convert.
According to the campaign archive on Clapboard, the hero film generated approximately 2.93 million views. No additional verified performance data — including finalist submission volumes, microsite traffic, or Drizly coupon redemption rates — is publicly available for the Cuervo Marg Shake-Up at this time. What the structural evidence does confirm is meaningful: a nearly three-million-view count on a branded sweepstakes film is a strong organic signal for a category-specific activation in the United States food and drink space, particularly one with a relatively narrow geographic and demographic target.
The retail release promise embedded in the grand prize created a long-tail credibility mechanism. Winning flavors reaching shelves would generate earned media at the point of sale, extending the campaign's effective lifespan well beyond its June 30, 2022 closing date. The Drizly coupon distributed to all participants embedded a direct commerce moment into the broadest possible tier of the participation funnel, converting casual entrants into active purchasers rather than passive brand touchpoints. Across the United States alcoholic drinks market, few experiential campaigns in 2022 built a comparable incentive structure at every level of consumer engagement.
The Cuervo Marg Shake-Up was a 2022 Jose Cuervo campaign inviting US consumers to invent a new margarita flavor. Created by Mekanism, it ran May 9 through June 30, 2022. Participants combined Cuervo base flavors, trending ingredients, and a wildcard element, with a $100,000 grand prize and a retail shelf release for the winning flavor.
Mekanism created the Cuervo Marg Shake-Up for Jose Cuervo. The campaign's creative leadership included Executive Creative Director David Horowitz, Creative Director Victor Monclus, and Associate Creative Director Andreas Aristedes, supported by Senior Copywriter Alex Lee and Senior Art Director Antonia Berlinger, all based at Mekanism.
Jose Cuervo offered a $100,000 grand prize with the winning flavor produced for retail release. Twelve finalists each received $1,000 to fund a year of Cuervo margaritas. Every participant received a $5 Drizly coupon toward their next Cuervo margarita purchase, making the incentive structure tiered across all entry levels.
Jose Cuervo launched the Marg Shake-Up in response to two documented trends. According to a Drizly report, spirits overtook wine as the most popular US beverage alcohol category between 2020 and 2021. A Google Trends report simultaneously identified a spike in at-home cocktail-making interest, making consumer co-creation a timely and relevant campaign mechanic.
The Cuervo Marg Shake-Up hero film recorded approximately 2.93 million views, according to the Clapboard campaign archive. The campaign ran as an experiential, film, and integrated media activation across the United States, with the film component providing the primary narrative vehicle for the flavor-creation contest mechanic.
The Cuervo Marg Shake-Up received a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong consumer insight, disciplined multi-format execution, and commercially intelligent incentive structure, balanced against the inherent challenge of sustaining audience engagement across a seven-week experiential campaign in the United States alcoholic drinks market.
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