From Unrecognized
to Unmistakable.
We took Lunazul from 201k cases annually to the #3 tequila in America.
It’s hard to capture every strategy we’ve developed, idea we’ve created, and execution we’ve brought to market with Lunazul over seven years. But it’s easy to show what all that work has accomplished.
When Lunazul brought us on in 2017 the brand was selling just 201,000 cases annually. The accessible-priced, 100% agave tequila had distribution in only a fraction of the country and sat on the bottom shelf in an increasingly crowded category.
Together, we built more than campaigns. We built the brand, developing the strategy, positioning and creative platform, then bringing it to life through years of digital-first content designed to build relevance, recognition, and demand.
By 2025, Lunazul was selling 2.26 million cases annually—11.2X its earlier volume.
Its distribution grew from 11 states to all 50.
And the brand moved up, literally, from the bottom shelf to the second shelf at retail.
A brand that didn’t even register among America’s leading tequilas in 2017 climbed to #9 in the U.S. by 2022 and was named the #3 Tequila in America in 2025, surpassing popular brands like Patrón, 1800, Casamigos, Espolòn, and Hornitos.
“At No. 3, Lunazul increased by 29.5% to 2.26 million cases, according to Impact Databank. With that growth, Lunazul jumped ahead of Patrón, 1800, and Casamigos, each of which declined last year.”
For seven years, we’ve continually evolved Lunazul’s strategy, creative, and digital content as the brand, and culture, evolved. The result is a powerful example of what we believe a great creative partnership should do: not just build campaigns, but build brands that grow.
This is how we did it for Lunazul…
Audience Research
Strategy + Consulting
Branding + Advertising
Creative
Customer Experience + UX
Websites + Platforms
Social
Media + Influencer Marketing
We immediately knew we had to give the brand some emotional bite – to dig deeper and really own something – starting with a compelling point of view. In short, we needed to give the brand some soul. By the time our brand refresh was complete, we had taken Lunazul from a bottom-shelf afterthought to a top-of-mind consideration for the discerning tequila consumer – now prominently featured on the coveted second shelf alongside other premium brands.
Research reveals a hunger for life.
At Leap, every journey begins with a rigorous understanding of our audience – we want to uncover that key human insight that will allow us to breakthrough where our competitors cannot.
In this case, the journey began with focus groups across the United States to understand Lunazul Tequila’s drinkers: 21 to 45-year-olds living in Lunazul’s key markets who have an interest in culture, food, and travel.
What did we find? They are more adventurous than average. They have a combination of wanderlust and comradery, and are drawn to the path less taken. In short, they have a hunger for life.
Defining the brand: Feed the Wolf.
This audience research set the tone for our strategy. To take Lunazul from a well spirit to a celebrated, in-store consideration, we wanted to inspire our target audience to ask for the tequila with a wolf on it.
Inspired by the wolf embossed on every bottle of Lunazul Tequila, we created a provocative brand mantra that was also a stirring call to action: Feed the Wolf.
The wolf has a language all its own.
Leap created iconic symbols inspired by the wolf and the brand’s Mexican heritage. We added these unique markings to our brand tool kit to create a cohesive visual language and ensure all our photos and graphics would be unmistakably Lunazul.
In speaking to our target audience, we let the wolf become a metaphor for their own hunger for life and sense of adventure. Informed by audience research, we made Lunazul the brand of tequila that encourages them to gather their pack, hunt for new experiences and devour every moment.
With a clear audience mindset and campaign idea, we were finally ready to release the brand into the wild, including:
Brand videos
New Website
Print and point-of-sale
Brand photography
Social media
New website makes the brand howl.
To coincide with the brand relaunch, we revamped the website to incorporate the new positioning, graphics and tone. It’s now a single stop for information and reflects Lunazul’s new vitality with strategic lifestyle vignettes that speak to our target audience.
Unskippable video content our audience
couldn’t miss
(or ignore).
Through a strategic mix of video placements, we were able to not only increase awareness and drive our target audience to the redesigned website, but also elevate their perception of the Lunazul brand by purposefully placing our videos on premium networks that aligned with our audience’s interests, such as Discovery and Hulu.
Premium video
(Connected TV)
Premium placements for premium tequila
High-efficiency video
(Online Video, YouTube and Social)
Reach and engage the audience
We augmented that targeted approach with high-frequency video buys that reached a broader audience on social and streaming networks to increase awareness and made the ads more memorable by creating an interactive experience. Through advanced TV placements, we incorporated geotargeted store locators at the end of videos so that viewers could instantly find nearby stores where they could buy Lunazul.
Feeding a wolf pack hungry for more social content.
We then amplified the “Feed the Wolf” campaign on Lunazul’s owned social channels, efficiently increasing reach and recall on placements that are endemic to the campaign. As an integral part of our overall digital marketing strategy, our series of social campaigns provided a strategic mix of content: product-focused posts designed to educate and drive awareness, “Feed the Wolf” campaign videos and images to increase brand recognition and drive sales, and user-generated content from our concurrent influencer campaign to create deeper engagement with our audience.
A series of micro-campaigns on our social channels included a cocktail series featuring fresh recipes and inspiration for an audience always hungry for what’s new and different, a chef video series where some of the coolest names in the restaurant industry whipped up new dishes starring Lunazul tequilas.
Discovering a media partnership that could amplify our media spend in a major way.
When we first set out to create sponsored content to support the “Feed the Wolf” campaign, we knew that Discovery+ was a prime place for our message, with a viewing audience that closely aligned with Lunazul’s: high-income consumers who were more likely than the national average to dine out, cook for fun, travel and consume liquor at bars.
Our initial collaboration was an editorial social video called Save the Wolves that Discovery+ created using a compilation of video footage. The video integrated Lunazul tequila with logo placements and a Meta brand handshake. Save the Wolves was promoted from the Discovery+ Facebook Page and accompanied by a three-frame editorial Instagram Story, with results that confirmed we had found the right media partner.
25K+ likes
1K+ comments
1M+ views
Celebrating the family behind the brand.
Then, we embarked on a much more ambitious partnership adventure: “A Toast to Tradition.” Led by Josh Gates, host of the channel’s much-loved “Expedition Unknown” show (and a cocktail enthusiast himself), the series of videos took viewers behind the scenes of the Lunazul distillery to highlight the 250-year-old brand’s family heritage and everything that goes into the process of making their smooth-drinking tequila. Not only was “A Toast to Tradition” wildly popular with our audience, but it also left viewers with an elevated impression of the Lunazul brand, its history and the quality of its spirits.
Leveraging multiple digital targeting methods and outlets, we were able to generate 36M+ impressions of integrated social content, more than 19.9K social engagements and 76K+ visits to the custom landing page. According to a Meta Brand Lift Study, brand awareness for Lunazul jumped from 10.7% to 16.2% while consideration increased from 11.8% to 16.5% – a 7.8x improvement over Meta’s own CPG benchmarks!
Maintaining the brand’s premium perception with fresh content.
As the revitalized brand quickly captivated its audience, we continued to elevate Lunazul with new photo shoots, videos and visual elements that conveyed a premium feel, along with updated retail and point-of-sale materials that distinguished the brand.
In our ongoing research, we also learned that 88% of our target audience learn about products they’re interested through social media, and 56% have purchased a product after seeing a post from someone they follow. With that in mind, we developed an exclusive creator campaign designed to leverage key influencers to inspire a new generation of creators – and drive organic Lunazul enthusiasm.
Built to keep growing.
From digital and social to video, partnerships and cultural moments, Feed the Wolf has given Lunazul a distinctive creative foundation that can continually evolve and grow, without losing what makes the brand recognizable.