With Cinco de Mayo falling on Sunday, the least appealing day for a celebration of this magnitude since most guys are bracing themselves for the work week ahead, Dos Equis flipped the script and gave fans the party they deserved with a 360 PR-campaign that moved the holiday back three days to May 2, or “Dos de Mayo.”

The campaign started with an exclusive news story launch via a top-tier outlet, as well as pre-launch editor kits to our most relevant media to spark conversations and drive momentum. The campaign resulted in true engagement: Dos Equis was crowned “Twitter’s most talked about beer brand during Cinco de Mayo” (Expion research), millions of PR impressions were generated, and sales showed a 12.4 percent increase for the brand in retail channels vs. 2012 without the campaign (Nielsen).

The campaign kicked-off with an online video from the Most Interesting Man character outlining the Sunday “de Lemma,” and driving fans to our socials for details on how they could celebrate Dos de Mayo on a locally.

The video highlighted our partnership/contest with Maxim magazine, which included a full-website takeover during launch week to urge fans to enter a contest for an all-expenses-paid trip to the official Dos de Mayo party in Los Angeles. Within five days, the contest met the engagement/entry goal of 2,000 submissions.

To pre-seed the news with key targets, the campaign kicked off with an exclusive via Fast Company, as well as editor mailers including beer, a Most Interesting Man cardboard standee, elements to help editors host a party, and a “personal” note from the Most Interesting Man.

Editors were encouraged to tweet photos and pictures of themselves with the cut-out and contents using #DosdeMayo

According to Nielsen , for the two weeks of Cinco ending 5/11/13, Dos Equis Lager posted 12.4 percent volume increase in mass retail channels vs. a year earlier without the campaign.

The campaign helped Dos Equis gain roughly a 20 percent rise in share of voice vs. 2012 with online coverage and social tweets, leading all Mexican beer brands

The program generated nearly 180 million media impressions from 169 original stories in outlets such as Ad Age, Fast Company, Maxim.com, Creativity Online, Ad Week, COED Magazine and more.

Researchers at Expion found that Dos Equis generated the most Twitter mentions among beer brands during the Cinco time period, with 4,746 related Cinco tweets.

The celebrations truly were nationwide, as the campaign was selected by popular bar and restaurant chain, Buffalo Wild Wings, as its feature promotion in its 900+ U.S. locations.