Hasta La Creative!

Heineken USA imports Tecate from Mexico — and now the brand’s ad ideas will come from south of the border, too.

The marketer has shifted U.S. creative duties on Tecate to a Mexican-based agency, spelling the end of the beer marketer’s relationship with Saatchi & Saatchi New York. The brew’s new shop is Nomades, which was founded in Mexico and Argentina in 2013 by Pablo Batlle, an Argentine creative and DDB veteran. A Heineken USA spokesman confirmed the agency would handle Tecate from its Mexico City office.

It is unusual for a U.S.-sold brand to be led from an ad agency office outside of the states — but one that the Mexican imported brew has tried before. Tecate in 2012 handed U.S. ad responsibilities to Mexico City-based Olabuenaga Chemistri, which at the time had been handling the brew’s Mexican advertising. But the experiment ended 14 months later when Heineken moved the account back to the U.S., tapping Inspire, Dallas, to oversee English-language campaigns. (The Olabuenaga Chemistri agency no longer exists, following a merger with Leo Burnett in Mexico in April 2015 after Ana Maria Olabuenaga retired from the agency she founded.)

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