The Tequila - fication of the Drinks Industry
For far too long, Cognac has been pigeonholed as a "dusty" spirit. It is the liquid your grandfather sips once a year while staring thoughtfully into a fireplace. It has commanded respect, but it has completely lacked the consistent, fresh reinvigoration needed to stay culturally relevant.
While certain rappers and hip hop artists have done a heavy lift in keeping a few specific hero brands in the cultural conversation, that success has not trickled down to the wider category.
Meanwhile, Tequila has executed a masterclass in repositioning. Tequila is currently elbowing Cognac out of the spotlight because it has successfully claimed two vital territories - it is "cool" and it is "wellness - adjacent." Tequila brands have mastered the art of alcohol lifestyle marketing. Their brand worlds are high - energy, celebratory, and crucially, perceived as a lighter liquid. Younger drinkers do not just want a drink; they want a brand that mirrors their own values, aesthetics, and social habits. Cognac, in its current state, feels like an institution rather than an invitation.
The Hennessy RTS Dilemma: Visual Promise vs Liquid Education
This brings us to Hennessy’s jump into the Ready to Serve space. On paper, it is a logical attempt to stop being a special occasion brand and start being a daily lifestyle choice. However, the execution reveals a massive industry blind spot that we frequently warn our clients about - the clash between visual promise and liquid education.
If your marketing and packaging look like a neon, high - energy soda, you are making a specific visual promise to the consumer. You are promising lightness, refreshment, and immediate accessibility. But if the liquid inside that bright can is a heavy, woody, complex VSOP, you lose the consumer immediately. The palate shock is real.
At YesMore, when we build creative marketing campaigns, we advise brands that they must bridge this gap. Hennessy needs to strike a delicate balance. They must make the liquid accessible and refreshing for a modern palate, without stripping away the quality and heritage that makes it a Hennessy in the first place. It is a dangerous tightrope walk between being inclusive and actively cheapening the brand heritage.
The Celebrity Endorsement Trap
To combat the perception of being outdated, brands often reach for the nearest megastar. Hennessy’s reliance on big - name celebrity endorsements - like Bad Bunny or LeBron James - works brilliantly for generating short - term hype. But as we constantly remind the brands we partner with, celebrity status alone is not a sustainable strategy if the core brand identity still feels archaic.
Take the LeBron James retirement teaser, for instance. To the trained eye, it felt forced. It was an attempt to borrow cultural relevance rather than build it from the liquid up. A celebrity face can get a consumer to pick up a bottle once, but if the liquid does not fit their lifestyle, or if the brand world feels disconnected from their reality, they will not become a repeat buyer.
Shifting from Respect to Routine
The ultimate challenge for Cognac - and for Hennessy’s RTS ambitions - is behavioural. They need to shift from being a brand people simply respect from afar, to a brand people actually use in their daily lives.
Respect is built on heritage, age statements, and chateaus in France. Routine is built on convenience, aesthetic alignment, and flavour profiles that suit modern, high - energy social occasions.
If Cognac wants to survive the Tequila wave, it must stop relying on its history to do the heavy lifting. It needs to look at the consumer’s current lifestyle and engineer a brand experience - from liquid to label - that fits seamlessly into it. It needs to stop being a drink for the fireplace, and start being the drink for the pre - drinks, the festival, and the Friday night out.
Until that fundamental shift in alcohol lifestyle marketing occurs, launching a neon can will only be a sticking plaster over a much larger, dustier problem.
