The Most Interesting Blog in The World

 By Kelsey Fording

Ah yes, another beer company…. But this week’s advertising campaign is one that we all are familiar with and it is not even necessary to mention the brand in order to recognized who the advertisement is for.

“He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels”

“The Most Interesting Man in The World” campaign was active for 12 years and we can all picture the classy older man toasting a beer on our television screens with the deep, sensual, and soothing voice over telling the legends of Dos Equis’s Most Interesting Man in The World. This creative yet witty fictional character had the nation’s attention from the start to make consumers begin thinking differently when selecting which beer to choose on a night out or one in with friends and family. Dos Equis had planted the idea in consumers’ minds that the beer you choose does end up saying a lot about a person.

It was back in the mid 2000’s when Dos Equis started noticing a trend of an increasing demand for craft beer and a significant decrease in demand for imported beer. Dos Equis needed to find a way to bring their Mexican beer as a top choice for consumers when drinking and a way to stand out from their competitors. When looking at other competitors during this era, many were focusing on the younger generations with comedy and “frat” like tactics (just like last week’s blog from Bud Light with the “Whassup” campaign) but Dos wanted to take a different approach with a new brand personality. They partnered with Euro RSCG Worldwide, an advertising agency out of New York, to create this fictional character who never even had a name, just the title of “The Most Interesting Man in The World” who was a sophisticated, cultured, and well obviously, an interesting gentleman.

“He has inside jokes with complete strangers”

The Most Interesting Man in the World campaign kicked off in 2006 with the lead character as the American actor Jonathan Goldsmith who was 67 when he first got the role. Goldsmith had seen the screen prior to this gig as an actor in on stage on Broadway and a few roles in films from the 60’s-90’s but ironically never hit his peak of fame until he took the commercial role with Dos Equis. Goldsmith held this role for 10 years and became a pop culture icon around the nation.

The ads, that we are all familiar with, are a series of short clips some black and white and others vintage footage featuring exotic and fascinating moments of our star character throughout his life living it to the absolute fullest with three short outrageous and corky one liners as voice overs with a touch of what I would call a “Chuck Norris” humor to it.

“His two sense is worth thirty-five dollars and change”

               All of the ads in these series ended with our main character sitting in a booth with two gorgeous young ladies and he says the same line in every ad “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.” Then a brief pause and a close-up with Goldsmith looking straight into the camera to say, “Stay thirsty my friends”. This is what I find so… interesting (wink wink) about this whole campaign. The focus of the ads wasn’t a Dos Equis beer but a highlight of this fictional character who will only sometimes drink beer… for a beer commercial. And it is not until the last few seconds of the ad where we almost get the feel that Dos Equis is more of a product placement position in these stories if the interesting man than the star of the show.

“When in Rome, they do as he does”

There was indeed a brilliant strategy behind this concept, this fictional character was meant to be who Dos Equis target market hoped to be in their future. And by The Most Interesting Man in The World choosing to drink Dos Equis on his social occasions, it showed that you too can be lively and live interesting if you too chose to drink Dos Equis. This character was meant to be perceived as a role model or even fatherly figure to admire in but subconsciously be everything that men dream to be and someone women would dream to be with. Then by this character only sometimes consuming the promoted product, the message came across as more authentic even more attractive for viewers. And by using a fictional character verses a real life “high roller”, the legend can be lived on and leaves us wanting more from him. (In addition as dodging the liability that real celebrities can be when representing a popular brand… remember Jared… yikes.) But even with Goldsmith playing this fictional character it still came across not as an actor or fictional character, but the authenticity seemed more like a celebrity endorsement. In my opinion, this is due to the agency and Dos Equis not giving the character an actual name, yet because of this insanely interesting life, we should be expected to know who is and want to know more. And eventually we could all recognize this no named commercial character by just his luscious beard and his deep and mysterious look in his eye when he raises a Dos Equis.

For 10 years these ads came out up until 2016 when Goldsmith decided retired and Dos Equis decided to announce this by sending The Most Interesting Man to Mars, because of course they couldn’t let our legend die off, so Mars was the next best option I suppose.

“His only regret was not knowing what regret felt like”

This campaign replaced our original Most Interesting Man with a younger French actor Augustin Legrand, who took over as a what I guess we would call a more relevant or modern Most Interesting Man in The World. Dos Equis was worried of becoming outdated with Goldsmith growing older so by bringing fresh young and attractive Legrand, they hoped to keep the charming perception alive and fresh. This time around the character was Hispanic (and it resonated more with the Mexican beers history) and put his own new twist by finishing the ads with “Stay thirsty mi amigos”. But the reboot was just was not the same, that’s why I’m sure many of you, including myself can’t recall that there even was a new “Most Interesting Man in The World”.

So as this memorable campaign started to fizzle out, we had to say goodbye to The Most Interesting Man in The World in 2018 and welcome Dos Equis’s new approach with the “Keep it Interesante” campaign. Where at some points we can still see some similarities to our legend in these ads with some similar tones in the voice overs, but overall have taken a completely new approach for their consumers.

As for the outrageous success of one of the most memorable advertising campaigns of all time, one word: Legendary. The popularity of this character clearly translated into the sales for Dos Equis, while there is no official published record that I could find, reports say that in January of 2006, just after the campaign launched, sales skyrocketed with a 26% increase and shortly Dos Equis became the “fastest growing beer import in the country” stated by Dos’s brand manager Ryan V. Thompson. Then it is said that over the following years of this campaign the sales in the U.S. increased by around 22% at a time while the sales in the other imported beers where at a steady decline.

“Mosquitoes refuse to bite him, purely out of respect”

To this day we can still find cardboard cutouts of Goldsmith in the corner of college bars, or entertaining memes over social media. And now you might even notice that Goldsmith hasn’t thrown in his towel for acting in commercials yet, today he is in a similar position with Astral Tequila and his new saying “this calls for Tequila”. But as for The Most Interesting Man in The World, the campaign might have come to a conclusion, but the legend will live on.