{"id":116292,"date":"2026-02-26T10:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/bacardi-cmo-ned-duggan-on-how-patron-turned-a-regulatory-spat-into-a-marketers-dream\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T10:25:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T10:25:22","slug":"bacardi-cmo-ned-duggan-on-how-patron-turned-a-regulatory-spat-into-a-marketers-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/bacardi-cmo-ned-duggan-on-how-patron-turned-a-regulatory-spat-into-a-marketers-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacardi CMO Ned Duggan on how Patr\u00f3n turned a regulatory spat into a marketer\u2019s dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Each fairytale wants a villain \u2013 a homicidal stepmother, a hungry wolf. The identical is true in advertising.<\/p>\n

Whereas many advertising managers would possibly select a secure lifetime of uninterrupted gingerbread homes, others perceive that it\u2019s solely with a bit friction that they will ever get their palms on the glass slipper.<\/p>\n

\n

Simply ask Patr\u00f3n tequila and its advertising primo, Bacardi\u2019s international chief advertising officer (and president of Bacardi World Manufacturers), Ned Duggan. In 2025, the friction in its personal fairytale system got here within the kind not of a depraved witch, however a regulatory snafu \u2013 one that would simply have been quietly negotiated in non-public by attorneys. As an alternative, Duggan\u2019s crew spun the second into reputational gold, incomes him the top spot in The Drum\u2019s Rebel 50<\/a> within the course of.<\/p>\n

Right here\u2019s what occurred: precisely a 12 months in the past, Patr\u00f3n launched its \u2018100% Additive-Free Tequila\u2019 campaign<\/a>, trumpeting a proud historical past of three-ingredient purity in its tequila. \u201cThe key ingredient is that there are not any secret substances,\u201d the marketing campaign proclaimed. The messaging landed the model in scorching water with Mexico\u2019s Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT), which quickly suspended its NOM (Norma Oficial Mexicana) Certification and successfully blocked (albeit briefly) the model\u2019s capacity to export utilizing the protected phrase \u2018tequila.\u2019<\/p>\n

Patr\u00f3n could not have predicted how its first marketing campaign of 2025 would form the 12 months to come back<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although insisting on \u201cmutual respect\u201d and a \u201cconstructive dialogue\u201d with the CRT, Patr\u00f3n pulled a uncommon ripcord within the ensuing fallout, doubling down with the tongue-in-cheek \u2018Censored Truth\u2019 campaign<\/a>, utilizing the visible language of censorship to escalate the dispute right into a debate about ingredient transparency.<\/p>\n

As the person with whom the buck finally stops for such a daring transfer, did Duggan ever doubt that daring plan of action? \u201cNo, we didn\u2019t flinch. We have been lucky that our whole administration crew, our whole provide chain\u2026 there have been numerous the large crew behind this and all of us felt that that is one thing that’s so necessary to what Patr\u00f3n is that we have to be daring and we have to inform the story in essentially the most disruptive means potential,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Duggan is, actually, pretty sanguine about that set of promoting choices that noticed him voted by friends as essentially the most rebellious advertising chief on the planet. Revolt? Perhaps, he says, however not revolt for its personal sake. \u201cDo I really feel like a insurgent? Finally, I\u2019m a storyteller and our crew tells model tales. Within the case of the Patr\u00f3n work, it was telling a narrative that’s a part of the DNA of the model. We have been standing up for territory that was essential to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Removed from on the lookout for a battle, Duggan says, Patr\u00f3n was merely defending its proper to inform clients what it had all the time informed them: that it\u2019s a tequila with simply three, high-quality substances. \u201cThere have been challenges to our capacity to inform that story and that\u2019s what we really feel makes Patr\u00f3n distinct. In order that was a kind of conditions the place we have been prepared to go to the mat and to face up for what the model believed in. So we did.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have been prepared to go to the mat and rise up for what the model believed in,\u2019 says Duggan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a technique to be rebellious, however it was a technique to face up for and to speak what the model is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

insurgent by finding out finance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you wish to go on the lookout for revolt in Duggan\u2019s life, you\u2019ll discover it in an unlikely place: his early profession in finance.<\/p>\n

In an inversion of the Hollywood-honored story of a child abandoning their mother and father\u2019 Stem ambitions for a profession within the arts, Duggan says that his training (first a BS in finance, later an MBA) and his early profession in banking have been a revolt of types from his extra liberal-arts inventory (his father was a Washington, DC speech author and his mom an accounts particular person in promoting.)<\/p>\n

Since that MBA, Duggan\u2019s solely had one gig, Bacardi, since becoming a member of as a model supervisor on the Gray Goose account again in 2008. But it surely hasn\u2019t felt like one gig, he says. The corporate has taken him from Florida to Bermuda and now to London. \u201cTypically, I really feel like I\u2019ve been in three or 4 completely different corporations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Describing Bacardi as a \u201csmall firm with huge manufacturers,\u201d Duggan places his longevity there right down to the entrepreneurial agility of the still-family-owned enterprise and the dynamism of its continued urge for food for buying thrilling manufacturers (together with Patr\u00f3n in 2018 and, extra just lately, Ilegal Mezcal in 2023).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that diverse portfolio of heritage and purchased manufacturers at various ranges of internationalization that the majority makes Duggan love what he does. Take elderflower liqueur St Germain, acquired again in 2012 however \u201cnonetheless very early in its life stage,\u201d having fun with speedy worldwide progress off the again of culture-focused work, together with a partnership with actor Sophie Turner<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Partnerships with creators, film stars and sporting tentpoles proceed to be key levers for Bacardi manufacturers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Or Gray Goose vodka, \u201cacquired in 2004 and actually having a second once more,\u201d thanks partly to advert work just like the latest Zoe Salda\u00f1a marketing campaign \u2018Make Time Wait\u2019 and a partnership with the US Open<\/a> now a few many years outdated. Final 12 months, he says, was essentially the most profitable within the partnership\u2019s historical past, shifting over 700,000 \u2018Honey Deuce\u2019 cocktails (that\u2019s one-and-a-half cocktails a second), to the tune of $12m in gross sales. Or D\u2019uss\u00e9 Cognac, constructed round a 2012 relaunch in a partnership with Jay-Z and Roc Nation. \u201cThat was one of many highlights of my profession,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n

Wish to go deeper? Ask The Drum<\/h4>\n


\n <\/p>\n

<\/miso-explore>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018Manufacturers as experiences\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For every of these manufacturers, Duggan says, the core technique is similar: understanding the model when it comes to the life-style it encapsulates and delivering experiences in service of that life-style. \u201cAll of those manufacturers stand for a life-style. It\u2019s extra than simply the merchandise we promote but in addition the experiences that we offer, whether or not it\u2019s in a bar or restaurant or at a music pageant. That\u2019s finally what persons are shopping for.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is more true within the spirits world than wherever else, Duggan says: the model or cocktail you order is a communication in addition to a purchase order. \u201cWhen somebody walks as much as a bar and orders a Patr\u00f3n Reposado on the rocks, it broadcasts to your entire bar who that particular person is, how they really feel about themselves and the way they need to be seen. If that very same particular person walks up and orders a Bacardi pina colada, individuals will have a look at that particular person very in a different way and that particular person will really feel very in a different way about themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spirit model that somebody orders is the best way that somebody is projecting their identification. We\u2019re very cognizant of that as we’re constructing our manufacturers, not solely by way of product credentials and intrinsics \u2013 which, after all, have to be distinctive \u2013 however across the experiences, whether or not it’s by way of partnership, content material or bodily experiences. That\u2019s the place our manufacturers are made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duggan\u2019s 3-step brand-building philosophy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The 12 months Patr\u00f3n has simply loved is maybe an ideal case examine in something top CMOs have now been saying for years<\/a>: sensible model husbandry is now as a lot about response as it’s about motion and response means assembly the world as it’s fairly than designing it as you want to it to be. However for Duggan, that doesn\u2019t imply absolutely ceding management a lot because it calls for working from a base of sturdy self-knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a time when advertising was far more managed,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd now with the fragmented media market, with influencer advertising, with transparency, with the savviness of customers, there may be numerous chaos; a component of not essentially all the time being in 100% management of the message. That\u2019s why it’s so necessary to be genuine and to be sure that, as a lot as potential, you direct the messaging, as a result of individuals will odor it for those who\u2019re not. Within the chaos comes an concept of once you\u2019re staying true to one thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ensuing picture of the CMO, for Duggan, is just not that of a director however of an \u201corchestrator,\u201d he says, acknowledging that \u201cadvertising is a crew sport.\u201d \u201cMy job is to create an surroundings for the crew and the prolonged crew of businesses to really feel an absence of concern when creating work and to have the ability to transfer shortly and to be empowered. The command-and-control surroundings that existed for a few years doesn\u2019t exist at present.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, need to be a insurgent like Duggan (even when he\u2019s reluctant to assert the title)? Right here\u2019s his advertising course in three factors:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cPerceive what makes your model distinct. What are the core attributes that make you completely different from the opposite manufacturers which might be that you simply\u2019re competing in opposition to?\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cKeep completely true to these and discover inventive methods to inform your story.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cBear in mind, what you do is as necessary as the way you talk.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n