Patrón's 'censored truth' campaign uses misspelled billboards

Mexico's Tequila Regulatory Council barred Patrón from claiming its product is "100% additive free" last year. The brand responded with a "Censored Truth" campaign that bleeped and blacked out the phrase. Now it is taking the message to billboards with deliberate misspellings.

Patrón's new out-of-home ads, created by BBH USA, include phrases like "No atrificial flvaor. No atrificial cloor. No atrificial swetness." Some omit the brand name entirely, relying on the silhouette of its bottles and a link to guess-which-tequila.com, the company told CMO Insider.

The CRT had briefly removed Patrón's official NOM compliance mark and halted its border exports after the brand refused to drop the "additive free" messaging. Mexican authorities consider the claim misleading because all tequila must meet certain production standards. The CRT bars tequila producers from marketing additive-free claims.

"Our mystery ingredient is that we don't have a mystery ingredient," Roberto Ramirez Laverde, Patrón global SVP, told CMO Insider.

Patrón's internal brand metrics show the transparency approach is working, Ramirez Laverde said. Consumers' willingness to pay more for Patrón has risen, and more drinkers say they are "happy to be seen drinking" the brand. He said the company focused on consistent communication rather than rolling out new messaging each season.

"As marketers, we usually make a key mistake: we get tired of things before the consumer does," Ramirez Laverde said. "We are used to seeing our products and campaigns 100 times before they are in front of consumers' eyes."