Jose Cuervo Honours Mexican Heritage with Vibrant Day of the Dead Campaign

For the fourth year, Purple Creative have created a vibrant Day of Dead campaign for Jose Cuervo featuring their Especial limited edition bottles, this time showcasing a joyous local Mexican tradition where families clean the bones of their departed relatives.

The story honours the town of Pomuch on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico where Hanal Pixan, meaning ‘food for the souls’, takes place. It is a unique Day of the Dead ritual in which villagers visit the tombs of lost loved ones to clean the bones with special brushes and decorate the graves with flowers and tequila – commemorating and celebrating the departed.

“As a proud Mexican icon, Jose Cuervo wants to champion all aspects of the historic Day of the Dead festival, and its many cultural nuances. Our aim is to educate people about what it is, how it’s celebrated and why it’s so significant to Mexican culture and heritage – and Hanal Pixan is a particularly rich and fascinating ritual. Meaningful, authentic and compelling, it’s a tradition that deserves to be brought to life in our latest campaign,” said
​Aileen Cotter, global brand manager, Jose Cuervo

Inspired by the special limited edition label designs from Mexican artist and illustrator Tavo Santiago, Purple created a series of colourful, life-giving assets that truly capture the symbolism and rich meaning that underpins Hanal Pixan.

Putting Jose Cuervo in the centre of the fiesta, Purple created a stunning maximalist campaign artwork that extracts iconography from the label but adds a host of new elements to help it awaken the fiesta.

“Our key visual is based on an ‘ofrenda’, a decorative and ornate shrine made to honour the dead, where relatives toast the departed with tequila. Using poignant iconography, like candles and clouds that light the way back for the spirits, and references to cleaning brushes, we’ve tried to capture the emotion and joy of the festival and the party atmosphere it creates," said Gwyn Edwards, creative director, Purple Creative. "The idea works particularly well in animation, with our film showing everything from the journey of the dead to the versatility of Jose Cuervo tequila. It’s a campaign that we hope will inspire global markets and encourage them to stretch the idea even further!”

The campaign comes to life in a range of fun and memorable ways across multiple mediums, including key visuals, animated cocktail Stories and playful POS. Purple also created two exclusive Day of the Dead themed Jose Cuervo cocktails, featuring Jose Cuervo Especial Silver and Reposado: Tequila Soulrise, a long serve with blood orange soda and The Awakening, a sweeter shorter serve with ice cream and coffee liqueur.
The Day of the Dead 2025 campaign was packaged in a comprehensive toolkit for global markets to use and is now live across the world.