Bobby Marhamat, CEO of León y Sol Tequila, delivers an insightful masterclass at Bar Convent Brooklyn on transitioning a spirits company into a spirits lifestyle brand. Bobby breaks down why younger consumers (like LDA Gen Z) aren’t “anti-alcohol,” but rather anti-meaningless—demanding authentic cultural alignment and memorable real-life experiences.
Park Street Imports is the back-office and importing solution for alcoholic beverage brands launching and scaling in the U.S. market.
Bobby Marhamat’s Presentation Transcript
Before we get started, today’s session is going to focus on building a lifestyle brand—specifically, how we built a lifestyle brand. Part of what we wanted to build was not just another tequila company. As you all know, more tequila brands have launched in the last five years than in the previous 50 combined. There is a lot of tequila and a lot of agave being brought to market.
Our goal was to build a lifestyle brand centered around our core product, tequila, alongside a broader suite of ecosystem products. We wanted to focus on creating a great product that truly resonates with the consumer.
At BCB alone, there are over 200 brands, with 80-plus exhibiting for the first time. We’ve seen massive growth in the tequila category from 2019 to 2023, with approximately 30% of that growth captured by craft brands like ours. While wholesale distribution opens initial retail doors, it is the lifestyle and culture you create around the bottle that drives reorder velocity and repeat purchase—which has been our core focus.
To give a quick snapshot of consumer psychology: modern buyers don’t consume ads the way previous generations did; they “read rooms.” They want to walk away from an event with a lasting memory, and that memory ties directly back into your brand.
While headlines claim Gen Z is drinking less, they aren’t anti-alcohol—they are “anti-meaningless.” They want to be associated with a culture and a brand identity that they genuinely connect with. Building a strong lifestyle brand means offering something far larger than the liquid inside the glass.
Consider these experiential statistics:
-
59% of consumers make a brand purchase within 48 hours of attending an experiential event.
-
93% of consumers report that live events are more effective than traditional TV advertising.
-
85% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product after participating in a live brand activation.
The Four-Play Lifestyle Brand Playbook
Here are the four strategic plays required to build a strong lifestyle brand:
-
Anchor Lifestyle as Your Core Purpose: Clearly define what your brand stands for in the consumer’s daily life.
-
Build Partnerships Beyond the Shelf: Form non-traditional, strategic partnerships that reinforce your brand ecosystem.
-
Make Brand Identity a Three-Dimensional Experience: Execute memorable, high-impact activations (Activations = Memories).
-
Measure What Compounds: Track the specific commercial metrics that serve as your brand’s North Star.
Play 1: Anchor Lifestyle as Your Core Purpose
Consumers actively seek culture. León y Sol translates to “Lion and Sun” in English, drawing directly from our Persian-American heritage. We came from a culture centered on big families and gathering to create lifelong memories. We wanted to build a brand true to those roots while honoring the authentic craftsmanship of Mexico. Because of that, we purchased our own land where our agave is grown, partnering directly with Mexican families to cultivate and craft our tequila.
Everything we do—from music and fashion partnerships to trade activations—revolves around curating those peak social memories.
When we launched, industry insiders advised us: “Don’t make the bottle completely black; consumers need to see the liquid level,” or “Don’t price it at that tier.” But we stayed anchored to the lifestyle aesthetic we were building, knowing it was the right fit for our target consumer.
The commercial data supports experiential brand-building:
-
Experiential customer acquisition yields a 20% to 40% higher Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) compared to digital channels.
-
Experiential brands generate 3x the word-of-mouth awareness of non-experiential brands.
-
Brands capture a 70% repeat purchase rate following direct consumer participation. (In our event footprint, we observe a 55% to 65% repeat business rate).
Play 2: Build Partnerships Beyond the Shelf
Early on, we established strategic, non-traditional partnerships to drive authentic brand awareness:
-
Empire Records: We formed a strategic partnership with Empire Records, the largest independent record label in the US (representing artists from Snoop Dogg to Bebe Rexha). Rather than taking a traditional celebrity-endorsement route, we leverage their roster to integrate the right artists into our brand activations.
-
Tequila Town: We built a dedicated experiential footprint in Miami called Tequila Town, where consumers can physically immerse themselves in our brand culture before making a retail purchase.
-
Insomniac Events: We finalized a major partnership with Insomniac (the premier electronic music and EDC festival organizer), directly targeting our ideal customer profile (ICP)—consumers aged 25 to 55 who prioritize live lifestyle experiences.
-
Toma (Sofia Vergara): We cross-activate with Sofia Vergara’s empanada brand, creating collaborative food-and-beverage moments that align with our consumer’s lifestyle preferences.
Play 3: Make Brand Identity a Three-Dimensional Experience
A bottle is a noun; an experience is a verb. Focus on the action.
When launching our non-alcoholic agave spirit, Nikila—a real tequila where the alcohol is extracted—we avoided running standard ad campaigns. Instead, we hosted curated, high-touch tasting events to demonstrate that zero-proof offerings can deliver the same social experience. This allows non-drinkers or expecting mothers to remain part of the brand’s lifestyle occasion without compromise.
We also expanded our lifestyle touchpoints beyond liquid:
-
Tequila Lollipops: Canned and packaged for party environments where consumers want an interactive brand element without necessarily drinking alcohol.
-
Louis Vuitton Designer Collaboration: A high-fashion capsule collaboration launching within 60 days, merging fashion and spirits.
We operate under the brand philosophy made famous by Red Bull: Red Bull isn’t just an energy drink company; they are a media and marketing engine that happens to sell energy drinks. We build an authentic lifestyle brand first; the product sales naturally follow.
Play 4: Measure What Compounds
To ensure our experiential investments drive real business results, we track five key metrics:
-
Dwell Time per Attendee: The physical duration a guest engages with our activation.
-
User-Generated Content (UGC) Posts per 100 Attendees: Social amplification metrics.
-
48-Hour Post-Event Purchase Rate: Direct conversion velocity following a live activation.
-
On-Premise Reorder Velocity: Tracking account pull-through (we built our distribution footprint on-premise first before expanding off-premise).
-
30-Day Repeat Trial Rate: Account and consumer retention.
While 89% of marketers report positive ROI from experiential marketing, only 23% feel confident measuring it. Tracking these metrics ensures you know exactly what is working.
Where Capital Is Wasted vs. Where Capital Compounds
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ WHERE MONEY IS WASTED │ WHERE MONEY COMPOUNDS │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ High-cost events with limited foot traffic │ Targeted activations near the point of purchase │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ One-off, transactional celebrity sponsorships│ Replicable, market-to-market event formats │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Activations disconnected from the product │ Activations that earn a photo and a follow │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Unmeasured activations (no QR/promo codes) │ Strategic lifestyle brand partnerships │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Non-repeatable, one-shot marketing stunts │ Recurring series (e.g., "Sol Thursdays") │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Avoid “one-off” celebrity sponsorships; they feel good in the moment, but they don’t build long-term brand equity. Focus instead on repeatable, high-touch programs. For example, we host free, recurring “Sol Thursdays” in every active market to engage local consumers, build community, and drive organic retail conversion.
Find the right lifestyle partnerships, measure your post-event conversion, and build an authentic brand ecosystem that speaks directly to your consumer.
Thank you very much.