Latest news with #Cuervo
Campaign ME
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Campaign ME
Marketing global events to audiences in the Middle East
Global live entertainment was no longer testing the waters in the Middle East. With major international live events coming to markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, regional audiences are showing up and selling out arenas and stadiums across the Middle East. This month, Proactive Entertainment has brought the internationally renowned musical Mamma Mia! to Abu Dhabi in the UAE. Taking over Etihad Arena on Yas Island from June 11 to 22, the event has hosted thousands of theatre fans. Jose Cuervo, Middle East Regional Director at Proactive Entertainment speaks to Campaign Middle East on how it shaped its marketing strategies to draw in audiences to the show. 'We run campaigns in parallel,' he explains, stating that strategies differ on the optimal target audience for each live event. 'For Mamma Mia!, our key target audiences are women in their late 20s to, high 40s. We have understood that for this demographic in particular, the best way to actually convert is digitally through Meta, Google and through out-of-home (OOH),' he says. 'We have a very strong outdoor strategy which goes not only through Abu Dhabi but also in Dubai,' he continues, 'from branding on taxis, billboards on streets, and screens in different places around the country.' 'That has allowed us to have a very omnipresent campaign throughout the show's run,' he adds. But demographics alone don't sell tickets. Consumer insight is the compass. 'We're constantly surveying audiences, not just in the UAE, but across the Middle East,' Cuervo says. Even though he admits that shows like Hamilton may take years to migrate from New York to Yas Island, 'when they do, the demand is rarely in question,' he says. He further explains that Proactiv also keeps a close watch on repeat viewership and bases its strategy on how soon a show can return to a market and still sell out. In terms of converting awareness into ROI in ticket sales, Cuervo says 'YouTube ads has been very big for us,' as they 'allow for the show to be present at all times, even when you're far from the season itself.' He also says that 'Instagram and search are always at the top,' of the event company's conversion rate. Finally, securing the right partners adds to the strength of marketing global events to audiences in the Middle East. 'Platinumlist has been in the region for years and they've grown a very strong database which allows us to speak directly not only to their entire database but segments that are more relevant to us when it comes to musicals,' Cuervo says. 'Our government partners, Miral and DCT Abu Dhabi have also been instrumental in driving this theatre strategy and turning Abu Dhabi into the theatre capital of the Middle East,' he adds. 'That's why we have been so successful – because it's the collective effort of several stakeholders,' he concludes.
Hypebeast
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Zack Tabudlo, Hideki Ito and T33G33 Hit the Road with Levi's® and 88rising's City by City Music Series
88rising'sFuture Asian Music(FAM) andLevi's®, announced the Road to FAM series last month, honoring the global music scene and spotlighting burgeoning Asian talent. The free, multi-city performance experience will hit Singapore, Jakarta, Manila and Kuala Lumpur this month and it kicked off in high spirits in Manila. The series celebrates the next generation of talent as well as Levi's® cultural innovation, as the tour aligns with the anniversary of the iconic 501® jeans, worn by stars of all walks of life from past generations. FAM got the party started at Manila's Apotheka on May 14, with tickets selling out in less than a day. The inaugural show proved to be extra special as Manila-based musicianZack Tubudlotook to his hometown stage alongside local rising DJ talentHideki ItoandT33G33. Tubudlo made his mark on the music industry and placed a spotlight on Filipino talent with his viral tracks, including'Binibini,'which he broke a record with as the first Filipino artist to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. To set the tone for the event, the DJ openers warmed up the crowd with techno, house, R&B and indie pop tracks. Tubudlo then performed his latest single'Manoloko,'as well as some other fan-favorite hits. He wore a Levi's® custom outfit crafted in collaboration with local designerRio Cuervoto further honor the local creative scene. Cuervo was directly inspired by Tubudlo's sound when creating the one-of-one look. She shared that she was actually listening to his song 'Manoloko' while designing. 'The patchwork jacket is my favorite because that's truly a combination of Zack's art, which is his music, and my art in repurposed clothing. I was very much inspired by how his music mends hearts. I mend retaso,' says Cuervo. Limited-edition Levi's® patches were created for guests of the event by Global, Skunkworks and Zack Tubudlo's team and there are more surprises to come on the rest of the Road to FAM tour stops. To close off the multi-city music series at the end of the month, Jakarta's headliner Ramengvrl has invited labelmateKENZ, an Indonesian rapper co-signed byRamengvrlherself, to join the roster on stage at ZOO SCBD on May 25th. Tickets are still available, so don't miss out. Learn more about the series
San Francisco Chronicle
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Bay Area bartender who created the tequila sunrise for the Rolling Stones has died
Robert 'Bobby' Lozoff, the Marin County bartender who helped propel the tequila sunrise from barroom obscurity to international fame after serving it to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger during the Rolling Stones' 1972 U.S. tour kickoff, died April 14 in Hawaii. He was 77. His death was confirmed by writer, podcast host and bartender Jeff Burkhart, who chronicled Lozoff's career in Bay Area newspapers. The cocktail's breakout moment came during a private party at the Trident, a waterfront restaurant in Sausalito known for its celebrity clientele and counterculture ambiance. Concert promoter Bill Graham had arranged the gathering to ease the Stones' return to California following the violence at their infamous 1969 Altamont concert. Lozoff was working behind the bar when his sweet, citrusy cocktail caught the attention of rock's biggest stars. More Information Billy Rice and Bobby Lozoff's Tequila Sunrise 1½ ounces Santo blanco tequila 2 ounces fresh-squeezed orange juice ¾ ounce Sonoma Syrup Co. pomegranate grenadine syrup 1 Tillen Farms Merry Maraschino all-natural stemmed cherry 1 small orange wheel In a stemmed hurricane-style glass filled with ice, combine tequila and orange juice, and stir. Sink grenadine to bottom and garnish with orange wheel. Recipe courtesy of the Trident. 'Keith Richards walked up to the bar and asked for a margarita, and I said, 'Hey, have you ever tried this drink?' And he went, 'Alcohol? I'll try it,'' Lozoff recalled in 2016. 'So I poured him the tequila sunrise, and you could sort of see the light go on in his head. Bingo. You don't need a bartender to travel with you, just buy a bottle of Cuervo, a bottle of orange juice and grenadine.' That drink became a fixture of the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour. Richards later dubbed it the 'cocaine and tequila sunrise tour,' a moniker that stuck in music lore. The guitarist later confirmed the story in his memoir, 'Life.' As the band traveled across the country, so did the cocktail — eventually inspiring the 1973 Eagles song 'Tequila Sunrise,' a 1988 film of the same name and decades of pop culture references. It was later adopted in Jose Cuervo campaigns. Lozoff was born in 1947 in Canada. After graduating from college in Montreal, he moved to the United States, landing in Northern California at the height of the counterculture era. 'The music scene in San Francisco was big in the summer of '67, '68, '69, and Marin was the county where the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin' reigned, Lozoff told the Lahaina News in 2016. 'The minute I graduated from McGill University in Montreal, I bailed to the United States and ended up in Sausalito hanging out with hippie music circles in Marin County and got involved with the Trident opening up,' he added. Lozoff began his tenure at the restaurant at the bottom, first as a dishwasher, then a busboy. 'When I turned 21, they let me start tending bar, and I kept advancing up,' he said. The Trident, co-owned by the Kingston Trio, was itself a hot spot for rock stars and countercultural icons. 'I was definitely a Deadhead back in the '70s, so it was always thrilling to serve (the Grateful Dead) at the Trident,' Lozoff told the SF Weekly in 2016. 'David Crosby lived down the street, and he was in quite a lot. … One of the biggest names of the time was Janis Joplin. She always came in and drank anything I would pour for her. She invited me to her wild parties that she threw at her house in Corte Madera.' The Trident poured more tequila than any other establishment north of the border in the early '70s, and its innovative cocktail program, driven in part by Lozoff's experimentation, helped usher in a new era of American bartending. Lozoff moved to Hawaii in 1976, where he helped open the Blue Max nightclub and later pursued a career in technology. He taught computer classes at the West Maui Senior Center and remained active in the community until his death. In 2024, the Marin History Museum and the Trident restaurant honored Lozoff and Rice, who died in 1997, with a historical marker. Lozoff was unable to attend. A list of survivors was not immediately available.
New York Times
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
José Cuervo: The Man, the Legend, the Equine Tequila Shots
As far as personal branding goes, getting name-checked in multiple chart-topping singles isn't a bad strategy. To quote just one, Shelly West's 1983 country-radio banger: 'José Cuervo, you are a friend of mine/I like to drink you with a little salt and lime.' But there's a complex life behind this name, so often tossed around in American overindulgence ditties, and in 'Tequila Wars: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico,' the James Beard Award-winning author Ted Genoways has dug deep to find it. 'José Cuervo is arguably the most famous name in Mexican history, but because of his own reticence and carefulness, because of the documentary absences in public and private archives, and because of his tight-lipped community and the passage of time,' writes Genoways, 'many people today do not even realize he was a real person.' His densely packed biography of José Cuervo Labastida y Flores is a textured account that details Cuervo's relationships with rival tequila producers, and his efforts to survive in a politically unstable era. By drawing on family, newspaper, government and university archives, as well as the extant scraps of Cuervo's professional and personal correspondence, Genoways is able to paint a nuanced portrait of an elusive figure. Memories recorded by Guadalupe Gallardo González Rubio, Cuervo's niece, provide many of the book's more colorful passages (including rare vignettes of happy family times) — although, as Genoways warns, her 'ornate, sensitive and marvelously detailed accounts are also frustratingly short on basic facts,' like accurate dates. 'Tequila Wars' opens with a reimagining of Cuervo's 1914 escape on horseback from his Guadalajara mansion, after getting word that Pancho Villa's revolutionary army is on the way to arrest him for backing the wrong side in Mexico's chaotic civil war. Following a brief stop to blow a mouthful of tequila up his exhausted steed's nostrils (depicted here as a folk cure for equine hoof pain), Cuervo goes into hiding. After that dramatic start, the book settles into more conventional biography mode, going back to the Cuervo family's 1758 entry into the liquor business in the Tequila Valley, distilling the vino mezcal made from the region's blue agave plants. Although an heir later dismissed Cuervo as 'a nice man, not a great businessman,' Genoways argues that he was actually 'an active and aggressive molder of his moment and milieu — as a technological innovator, a business tycoon, and perhaps, most of all, as a political power broker.' Cuervo worked to get a railroad line to the valley to build out his distribution network. Later, he persuaded rival distillers to band together in a business alliance 'structured in the style of German 'kartells'' to control prices, production and distribution of their goods. With trade relations between Mexico and the United States once again in the news, the book's examination of Cuervo's illegal trafficking over the border during America's Prohibition years feels like the foreshadowing it is: 'The old tequila smuggling routes — and the cartel model of black-market exploration — were taken over by the drug trade' after laws banning narcotics were passed in the 1930s. Cuervo's efforts paid off with international recognition and sales. His booming business during the World War I years raised even more scrutiny from the U.S. government, which monitored his tequila-distribution system out of fear he was running guns for America's foes. As Genoways reports, 'For the duration of the war, José Cuervo was an official enemy of the United States,' a tidbit omitted from most modern musical odes. But it's a concurrent war, the Mexican Revolution that took place between 1910 and 1920, that would have a bigger impact on Cuervo's fortunes and provides much of the book's tension. In these chapters, marauders repeatedly damage the rail lines and destroy his property; it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of who's burning down what — although vintage photographs and several illustrations help keep track of the players in this violent drama. Having survived the wars, Cuervo died suddenly, at the age of 51, in 1921 and was lauded with positive — if oddly vague — obituaries. Genoways offers his own epitaph: 'His name is inscribed on the family tomb — under the same skull and crossbones where his father was interred — but, more importantly, his name is inscribed on millions of bottles every year, carrying his fame from his native Tequila to the rest of the world.' If the Terry Pratchett observation that 'a man's not dead while his name is still spoken' stands, José Cuervo will live for the foreseeable future — and thanks to Ted Genoways, as more than just a brand name.
Los Angeles Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The Sausalito bartender who created the Tequila Sunrise, and served it to the Rolling Stones, has died
The creator of the modern-day Tequila Sunrise, concocted and popularized in a Sausalito bar in the 1970s, has died. Robert 'Bobby' Lozoff, a longtime bartender at The Trident, a well-known bar, music venue and restaurant frequented by many celebrities, died earlier this month in Hawaii of unknown causes. He was 77. Lozoff's death was first reported by the Marin Independent Journal. Jeff Burkhart, a columnist there, said Lozoff's longtime friend confirmed his death. Lozoff and a co-bartender, Billy Rice, are credited with creating the 'most famous and most popular version of the Tequila Sunrise,' according to a historic plaque denoting the milestone, which the Marin History Museum erected in 2023. As the story goes, Lozoff served the drink to a member of the Rolling Stones in 1972, when the band was at The Trident for a party. It was an immediate hit. 'I poured [the band member] the tequila sunrise, and you could sort of see the light go on in his head. Bingo. You don't need a bartender to travel with you, just buy a bottle of Cuervo, a bottle of orange juice, and grenadine,' Lozoff recalled in 2016. In some versions of the story, Lozoff first served the drink to Mick Jagger; in others it was Keith Richards. Either way, the bandmates loved it, taking the tequila, orange juice and grenadine drink with them on tour, quickly popularizing the combination. Their 1972 tour would become known as the Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise tour, spreading the drink 'all around the globe,' the Marin History Museum plaque says. An earlier version of the Tequila Sunrise is said to have been created in the 1930s or 1940s at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, using tequila, soda, lime juice and créme de cassis — a heavy, red liqueur, according to Chilled Magazine. But Lozoff and Rice created today's more ubiquitous Tequila Sunrise, using orange juice and grenadine for a beachy, ombré effect. 'Over the years, I had the great fortune to interview Lozoff on a number of occasions, and he wasn't all that interested in his cocktail legacy — which is the opposite of how those things usually work,' Burkhart wrote in his column remembering Lozoff. But he said Lozoff had very fond memories of working at The Trident. 'It was a fun time, and I have no regrets,' Lozoff told Burkhart in 2012. According to The Trident, this was Lozoff's recipe for a Tequila Sunrise: 1 part Jose Cuervo Especial Silver2 parts orange juice1 tsp grenadine From there, the recipe says, 'pour tequila and orange juice into a glass, over ice. Then, slowly pour in grenadine. Enjoy in a way the Rolling Stones would approve of.'
