Distilled 2025 : Neo-Hedonism and Feria Don Julio

Neo-Hedonism is defined in Distilled 2025 as experiences that make the soul sing” – in other words, not experiences that you would define as conventional, but ones that create “pinch me” memories. So, we are talking VR headsets over consoles for gamers, and street food pop-ups over restaurants for foodies.

And digging deeper into the data over the last year*, we saw many consumer conversations within the Neo-Hedonism trend refer to “alternative social spaces” – where people were looking for amazing experiences in the most unlikely and unique settings. And that is exactly what partygoers in Mexico City found last September, through a great piece of activation by Don Julio.

In September 2024, Don Julio reimagined La Feria – “the Fair” – , one of Mexico’s most traditional events, through its own unique eyes by creating La Feria Don Julio. The event took place at Aztlan, one of Mexico City’s most iconic Fair locations, on the evening of “El Grito” (Independence Day), on 15 September.

Over the whole weekend, Don Julio showed up with experiential activations across the on-trade, inspiring great cocktails, digital content as well as a creative stunt. This was a live national TV broadcast with globally acclaimed Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio and Mexican influencer Jezzini, acting as mariachis and drinking Don Julio Chile Serrano cocktails.

Here Rodrigo Reyes, Senior Culture and Entertainment Manager – Agave, at Diageo Mexico, talks about the ideas behind the campaign and how the team brought Don Julio, La Feria and “Mexicanity” to life for the local population.

Tell us about the traditional Mexican Fair – why is it central to Mexican culture?

“La Feria” is a very traditional part of Mexican culture – we all grew up with Ferias around us. And this was especially the case during the national holiday commemorating our Independence Day (15 September).

So why did you link La Feria with Don Julio?

Last September, Don Julio was launching a new flavour innovation – Don Julio Chile Serrano – exclusively for the Mexican market. We had insights that showed an increasing global buzz about Mexico – celebrities, films, Mexican made products. But these were things about Mexico or being done by Mexicans… none of these things were being done FOR Mexicans. So, we wanted to develop a campaign that across various touchpoints, reflected a “made for Mexico” motto.

Tequila Don Julio’s role in culture is to modernise tradition. We thought of all the things that Mexicans have in common when it comes into celebrations and concluded that Ferias were the ones at the heart of every Mexican. And we came up with this idea of creating La Feria Don Julio – a celebration of our roots and our rich cultural heritage from a modern point of view. But it had to be a monumental occasion!

How did the activation come to life?

The main event was to take place in Mexico City on the evening of Independence Day. It took months of preparation and negotiation with Aztlan, Mexico City’s most iconic Fair, located at the very heart of the city, which had just recently opened its doors. Getting that venue was a big win for us.

The planning went down to the smallest detail – from having traditional Mexican food, spicy cocktails made with Don Julio Chile Serrano, local, modern DJs, renaming traditional fair games, reimagining traditional fair prizes, and even a dress code of Mexican chic!

We started sending invitations to guests and such was the clamour for tickets that the numbers increased from 300 to 600 partygoers. We invited celebrities, influencers and content creators. We then executed the fantastic stunt with Yalitza Aparicio. We connected to the live broadcast just after our President had spoken, him acknowledging Independence Day at Mexico City’s Zocalo [the main City square]. Therefore, the many thousands of people who were watching “El Grito” on TV could also watch Don Julio’s monumental Independence Day celebration in Mexico City

But essentially, we made it modern, made it look very cool – and that's why I think that people enjoyed it so much. They were reliving an old experience, of going into a fair to celebrate Independence Day, but it was much more than that. It was premium, Mexican and cool!

Were there multiple examples of the activation across the country?

This was the only activation at this kind of scale across the country. However, the launch of Don Julio Chile Serrano took place nationwide at the start of the month, so we had a month long focus, both in the build-up to 15 September and the aftermath, with on-trade activations and mass media.

Is it something that you’ll look to repeat?

Absolutely! We are really pleased with the results we gained from last year’s campaign (including it reaching the eyes and ears of more than 23m people across September, through print, TV, out of home and digital activations). But more importantly it had a positive commercial impact: in terms of the new Chile Serrano, September was our best month in terms of sales performance, selling 11% of the total volume made.

We are already planning this Independence Day’s Fair – most of our guests even suggested to us that Don Julio owned this special day since the brand has its roots in authentic “Mexicanity”.

*The Distilled 2025 Report analysed over 160 million social media and online conversations across all our markets

To see more on Distilled please visit the Distilled 2025 website