Ruavieja Bets on Mortality to Sell More Liqueur in Spain
Ruavieja's 'We Have To See More Of Each Other' is a 2018 Spanish advertising campaign created by Leo Burnett Madrid that uses a four-minute narrative film and an interactive online calculator to confront viewers with the finite amount of time they have left with the people they love, positioning the liqueur brand as a catalyst for meaningful human connection rather than mere festive consumption.
Published in Spain in December 2018 and developed for Pernod Ricard's Ruavieja brand, the campaign — known in Spanish as 'Tenemos Que Vernos Más' — marked a decisive strategic break from the brand's previous advertising footprint, as documented by Contagious. Before 2018, Ruavieja was characterised as a relatively obscure Spanish liqueur brand, with little documented presence in the broader cultural conversation, according to Contagious. The campaign set out to change that by giving the brand an emotional purpose that transcended product attributes entirely.
The campaign's dual mechanics were central to its ambition. A four-minute film placed real people — not actors — in an emotionally charged situation, confronting them with data about how rarely they actually see their closest friends and family. Alongside the film, an online calculator built using data from the Spanish Institute of Statistics allowed users to estimate precisely how much time they had remaining with the people who mattered most to them. The combination of narrative and interactive utility gave the campaign both broadcast reach and deep personal engagement across the Spanish market. Clapboard Score: 77/100.
Ruavieja operated in a mature and competitive segment of the Spanish alcoholic drinks market. Spain's cream-liqueur category was dominated by Baileys, which held an estimated 48% market share, according to research cited by Bordbia Ie, leaving Ruavieja as the second player with an estimated 12.6% share prior to the campaign, per the same source. Competing against a brand with that level of category ownership on product terms alone presented a structurally weak proposition.
Leo Burnett Madrid's strategic response was to abandon product-level competition entirely. Rather than contesting Baileys on flavour, heritage, or occasion, the agency repositioned Ruavieja as the brand that stood for something the category had never claimed: the idea that sharing a drink is ultimately about protecting time with the people you love. As reported by Contagious, this repositioning drew on a genuine cultural tension — the gap between how much time people believe they spend with loved ones and the stark statistical reality when frequency and life expectancy are calculated together. The insight was not invented for the campaign; it was surfaced from mortality data supplied by the Spanish Institute of Statistics, lending the creative a layer of journalistic credibility.
In the Spanish market, where liqueur consumption is historically tied to the Christmas and holiday season, anchoring the campaign to an emotional truth about human connection rather than to the occasion itself gave Ruavieja a year-round relevance it had never previously possessed, as noted by Contagious. The strategy also addressed a commercial priority: growing the brand's consumer base without increased promotional pressure, a goal the campaign ultimately achieved, as detailed in section four.
The creative execution of 'We Have To See More Of Each Other' rests on a single, disciplined formal decision: using real people rather than professional actors. The four-minute film places ordinary individuals in a structured situation where they are first asked about how often they see those closest to them, then shown a calculation — drawn from Spanish Institute of Statistics data — revealing how many hours of shared time they statistically have remaining. The emotional responses captured on camera are unscripted and unperformed, which gives the film a documentary texture that advertising rarely achieves.
Juan García-Escudero served as General Creative Director at Leo Burnett Madrid, with Gaston Guetmonovitch and Daniel Sáenz credited as Creative Directors, as documented by Ads of the World and Muse by Clio. Regarding the campaign's ambition, García-Escudero stated, as published in Chief Marketer on December 13, 2018: 'The best ideas are those capable of changing behaviors and sometimes even the way we live. If we can get people to do all they possibly can to see more of each other, we will have done something worthwhile.' The director of the film is Felix Fernandez de Castro, whose observational approach was integral to capturing the unguarded emotional moments the campaign required.
The interactive online calculator represented the campaign's second creative layer. Leo Burnett Madrid worked with Publicis Groupe's Advanced Analytics team to build the mortality and time algorithm that powered the tool, anchoring the emotional premise of the film in verifiable data. As reported by Contagious, this combination of long-form narrative film and data-driven interactive utility was structurally unusual for the Food and Drink category in Spain, and it is that combination which explains the campaign's exceptional audience engagement metrics.
The results of 'We Have To See More Of Each Other' across Spain are among the most documented of any Spanish advertising campaign from 2018. Ruavieja sales increased 52% during the campaign period, according to selfstorming.com. The brand reached 14.4% share of the total liqueurs market during the same period, the highest in Ruavieja's history, per selfstorming.com. The brand's consumer base grew by 12% without any increase in promotional pressure, also reported by selfstorming.com.
The campaign's film reached more than 13.3 million YouTube views in Spain, with 67% of those views classified as organic, according to marketingnews.es. Contagious reported more than 11 million views in its initial coverage, with later accounts documenting over 13 million views across Spain and Latin America, as noted by chiefmarketer.com. Six in ten people who saw the campaign shared it, and likeability reached 91%, according to Marketingdedela Home Blog. More than 500,000 people completed the campaign's online calculator, with an average time on the website of almost five minutes, as reported by Contagious.
These figures collectively describe a campaign that performed at an exceptional level across every conventional effectiveness dimension — reach, engagement, brand equity, and commercial sales — simultaneously. For a brand that entered December 2018 as a secondary player in a category dominated by Baileys, a 14.4% market share and a 52% sales lift represent a structural shift, not a seasonal fluctuation. The campaign's success in Spain also demonstrated that long-form narrative advertising in the Alcoholic Drinks category can generate measurable commercial returns when anchored to a genuine human insight.
Ruavieja's 'We Have To See More Of Each Other' is a 2018 Spanish campaign by Leo Burnett Madrid featuring a four-minute emotional film and an interactive online calculator. It repositioned the liqueur brand around time with loved ones, driving a 52% sales increase in Spain, according to selfstorming.com.
Felix Fernandez de Castro directed the campaign film. Juan García-Escudero served as General Creative Director at Leo Burnett Madrid, with Gaston Guetmonovitch and Daniel Sáenz as Creative Directors, as documented by Ads of the World and Muse by Clio. Pernod Ricard was the brand advertiser behind Ruavieja.
The main film reached more than 13.3 million YouTube views in Spain, with 67% classified as organic, according to marketingnews.es. Six in ten viewers shared the campaign, and likeability reached 91%, per marketingdedela.home.blog, making it one of Spain's most-shared advertisements of 2018.
Ruavieja reached 14.4% share of Spain's total liqueurs market during the campaign period, the highest in the brand's history, according to selfstorming.com. Before the campaign, the brand held an estimated 12.6% share in Spanish cream liqueurs and competed against category leader Baileys, per bordbia.ie.
The calculator used Spanish Institute of Statistics mortality data, built by Leo Burnett Madrid and Publicis Groupe's Advanced Analytics team, to estimate remaining shared time with loved ones. More than 500,000 people completed it, with an average session of almost five minutes on the website, as reported by Contagious.
Ruavieja's 'We Have To See More Of Each Other' receives a Clapboard Score of 77 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong narrative craft, exceptional engagement metrics, and verified commercial results in Spain, balanced against its relatively contained geographic footprint beyond the Spanish market.
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