El Bandido Yankee Tequila launched in 2021 by former NFL star Jim Bob Morris and NHL Hall of Famer Chris Chelios. It’s only fitting that the brand immediately leaned heavily into sports marketing to tout that its ultra-premium liquor is additive free and crafted entirely from agave at a distillery in Jalisco, Mexico. Perhaps even more fitting, it tapped sports media extraordinaire Allie Morris, who was on the founding team and now heads up its marketing and events teams.
Morris—who interned at ESPNU and the SEC Network before working in production and social media at Fox Sports LA and, ultimately, El Bandido Yankee Tequila—told Vendelux that
her role at El Bandido is to “get in front of people as much as possible.”
In a play on word of mouth, Morris said her marketing strategy at El Bandido is chock full of “liquid to lips” tactics “where we directly engage with our target audience to build lasting relationships and genuine connections.”
The mission statement came to life in the form of the “Chasing Life With El Bandido Yankee” campaign, which debuted last year and “is all about living life to the fullest and enjoying every moment with a fine glass of tequila in hand,” Morris said. As part of the campaign, tequila connoisseurs are encouraged to attend El Bandido Yankee Racing events across Texas, Indiana, Missouri, California and Florida.
Separately from the initiative, El Bandido is constantly utilizing sports arenas as a medium for its marketing assets, including “suites at pro stadiums [which] our staff is able to utilize whenever,” Morris dished. Though Morris didn’t delve into where, exactly, El Bandido has access to stadium suites—which typically comes as part of sponsorship deals or other business opportunities—posts on social media show that there was an El Bandido Yankee Tequila suite at Arrowhead Stadium’s GEHA Field at one point in time.
And because of the brand’s clear affinity for motorsports, it makes sense that El Bandido has served as the official tequila sponsor for NHRA Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indiana, plus supported individual racers who have donned El Bandido-branded motorcycles in the tequila company’s iconic blue brand color. Chicago-based El Bandido has also made contributions to the Wings and Wheels Foundation, which helps promising young racers overcome financial barriers.
On a weekly basis, El Bandido is either sponsoring a sporting event or hosting an activation at larger tentpole events such as the NFL Draft in Green Bay, Wis., Morris said. As much as 70% of the marketing budget Morris spends on activations alone.
Most recently, on March 26, El Bandido announced a partnership with the Nashville Sounds, the Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, that will bring the tequila to First Horizon Park with signature cocktails, in-game activations and branded engagement opportunities throughout the season, per a press release.
And on a quarterly basis, El Bandido is putting on one of its larger-scale events that are known to “spike sales in the area around where the event took place,” Morris added, noting that this return on investment is unique to events versus the brand’s other forms of marketing. El Bandido’s launch party back in 2021 was a testament to this on day one, when more than 200 tastemakers attended the Chicago bash, leading to “a lot of media attention [that] helped us with brand recognition and [got El Bandido] into large liquor retailers, which is very difficult for new brands,” Morris recalled.
These more traditional, in-person marketing tactics are offset with “digital strategies” such as “influencer marketing and social media,” which are “mandatory, in a sense,” per Morris. And though the CMO is responsible for overseeing “creative direction, planning, media outreach and developing the run of show [for an event],” Morris said she leads a team of five where other members are dedicated to social media, influencer strategies, engaging online presence and event logistics.
When not overseeing El Bandido’s marketing team, she works on a health startup that’s name is set to be released come May and is set to launch this summer. Morris said the wellness-focused company was founded as a result of the entrepreneurial spirit she inherited from her father. “It’s a health project—balancing out the tequila life,” Morris quipped, shying away from further details ahead of the company’s debut.
See how events are also playing a major role for other CMOs of major companies in Vendelux’s latest series, “A CMO’s View on Events:”
