Client: Cerveza Tecate
Campaign: Golfo de México
Photography: Cosimo Salvati
Stills Production: Polikroma
Global Production: Landia
Advertising Agency: Le Pub Worldwide
Post-Production: Gabriel Islas
Photography Assistants:
José María Carrasco
Sergio Ortiz
Awards:
Cannes Lions 2025 Creativity Festival
2 GOLD LIONS
4 SILVER LIONS
1 BRONZE LION
TECATE LIGHT CON SAL
DEL GOLFO DE MÉXICO
Context and Intent
A photographic study of territory, identity, and light
“Gulf of Mexico” is more than a campaign — it is a cultural statement.
A declaration of territory, memory, and belonging.
When Tecate asked to explore this region visually, I approached it not as an advertising assignment, but as an authorial project: a chance to represent a place with honesty, without stereotypes, without exoticization. The Gulf is not just a setting — it is a character, a source of identity, a living atmosphere.
My goal was simple:
to photograph a territory as it truly feels, not as ads usually portray it.
Tecate: Gulf of Mexico - Bar campaign has recently beed awarded several Lions in the Cannes Lions Creativity Festival of 2025.
Authorial Approach
I wanted to create images that hold presence without needing spectacle. Small, human indicators — salt on a glass, an off-center bottle, the weight of humidity in the air — become signals that anchor the viewer in a real environment.
Every frame is guided by respect for the place: its light, its temperature, its textures, its rhythm.
Rather than placing a product into a landscape, I worked to let the landscape inform the image — and let the product coexist within that cultural reality.
What emerged is a series where the brand enters a world that already exists.
Visual Language
This project is built on:
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Real light — hard, coastal, unfiltered
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Documentary compositional logic
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Controlled craft without losing spontaneity
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Natural imperfection, the essence of lived places
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Atmospheric cues that speak of heat, salt, and proximity to water
Nothing here is overly polished.
Everything is observed.
The intention was not to chase a “perfect” image, but a truthful one — a frame that carries the weight of a moment, a climate, a coastline, a culture.
Representation Without Cliché
The Gulf has been portrayed too often as a postcard or as a fantasy.
I wanted to avoid both.
This work rejects the exotic lens and instead adopts a position of cultural proximity: to look with the place, not at it.
Each image is built from the idea that representation must be:
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grounded,
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respectful,
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and aware of the realities that shape a region.
The campaign becomes a form of visual testimony — not decoration.
Color & Atmosphere
The blue in these photographs is not generic.
It is the Gulf’s blue: heavy, saline, humid, carrying memory.
The palette comes from the coastline itself, not from color-grading trends.
Warm light, midday sharpness, deep shadows — all respond to real geography.
This palette isn’t aesthetic. It’s cultural.
A Celebration of Territory
Conclusion
“Gulf of Mexico Bar” is not a celebration of a product — it is a celebration of a territory.
It is a visual exploration of cultural identity, sunlight, salt, and belonging.
For me, it stands as a reminder that commercial photography can be more than execution; it can be authorship, interpretation, and representation.
