Tecate Light - Gulf of Mexico Bar Campaign

In 2025, Tecate launched a provocative campaign that goes beyond product marketing. Responding to Donald Trump's attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the campaign uses salt from the Gulf as a symbol of territorial pride and cultural identity. The photography approach focuses on evoking presence through subtle visual cues, creating a documentary-style narrative without direct character representation.

Context and Starting Point

In 2025, Tecate launched a provocative and ironic campaign that centers on more than just a product: territorial pride. With a name loaded with intent — Gulf of Mexico — the campaign was born as a response to Donald Trump’s attempt to rename this vast body of water as the Gulf of America. Beyond the absurdity of the gesture, the campaign sparks a conversation about the symbolic sovereignty of territory.

The new Tecate Light with salt from the Gulf of Mexico is more than a product launch: it’s a form of cultural and emotional appropriation. The sea already has a name — and now it has a flavor. That saltiness — local, alive, and rich with history — became the core of the concept.

Visual Language and Projectual Approach

My approach was to build images that evoke presence without depicting it directly. Situations where certain visual cues — like a half-squeezed lime, an off-center bottle, or barely visible condensation on the glass — spark the viewer’s imagination and place them right there, in the middle of the scene.

Point of View

The intention wasn’t to represent a frozen instant or a postcard, but rather a moment charged with visual truth — where everything feels like it’s genuinely happening, and the camera arrives just in time to frame it precisely. That’s the logic guiding the entire series: composition with a documentary spirit, yet carefully crafted through art direction and lighting.