In 2014, Patrón and digital shop Firstborn began working on a virtual reality experience that would bring viewers into the brand’s Tequila distillery in Jalisco, Mexico — from the point of view of a curious bee. This case study looks at how the beverage brand gambled on virtual reality and won.
Case study summary
• Tequilla brand used VR ‘Bee’s eye view’ to show product lifecycle
• The Art of Patrón VR experience debuted around one of Mexico’s biggest days—Cinco de Mayo.
• The experience earned over 145 million impressions.
The challenge
A Tequila company might not be an obvious beneficiary of a VR marketing strategy, but Patron used the power of VR to tell a compelling story around the company’s product.
Every bottle of Patrón tequila is handcrafted with passion and precision. The brand wanted to offer tequila aficionados the chance to experience it up close and personal.
The solution
With Patrón’s signature bee as the guide (narrated by John Ventimiglia, the infamous Artie Bucco of The Sopranos), fans watch from the bee’s point-of-view as it chases an agave plant being harvested and transformed into tequila.
Using a mix of live action and computer graphics the brand created a 360 journey following the product lifecycle from agave field to being served at a glamorous party.
The entire production took six months and was developed by creative agency Firstborn, post-production agency Legend and sound design agency Antfood. When Patron does events, they’ll bring a virtual reality set up to show audiences their process.
To deliver on our creative vision, Firstborn pioneered a new form of VR development: pairing live action footage with cinematic CGI animation. Along with director Mark Kudsi
from aWHITELABELproduct, the brand partnered with Legend3D, who developed new systems for the project that allowed it to track the CG within 360° live-action footage.
To create the unique bee’s-eye point of view, we turned to Aerial MOB, the only drone operator certified by the FAA, to help create a custom drone for the film.
The results
The Art of Patrón VR experience debuted around one of Mexico’s most pride-filled days—Cinco de Mayo.
Fans across the country can experience how their favorite tequila came to be using VR headsets at in-store events.
For those at home, Firstborn created a custom interactive player that can be controlled via computer mouse or an iPad’s gyroscope. The experience also earned over 145M impressions.
• 20k Accumulated YouTube Views
• Used Binaural (3D) Audio
• Used a custom built Drone with a 7 GoPro
The ad gives the user an inside look at the process of creating Patron’s Tequila, coming across as both entertaining and educational.
