The following is a post from EditorialEmergency.com, spotlighting how brands can connect with the New Consumer by understanding and speaking to the four paradigms—in this case tapping into the move toward mindfulness and consumers’ increased hunger for susbtance.

“He once went to a psychic—to warn her.”

“His blood smells like cologne.”

“If he punched you in the face, you would have to fight off the urge to thank him.”

“Even watching him sleep has been described as breathtaking.”

“His legend precedes him, the way lightning precedes thunder.”

The above snippets of whimsy are all ad copy, as anyone familiar with Dos Equis’ current, hugely successful campaign, The Most Interesting Man in the World, well knows.

The upscale beer’s mascot, a gray-bearded, ultra-cosmopolitan man of mystery (portrayed by actor Jonathan Goldsmith) whose magnificence has awakened the inner fabulists in a fleet of copywriters, is a far cry from the usual TV dude hawking suds. In fact, his recurring catchphrase (uttered in floridly Latin-accented English) is, “I don’t always drink beer. But when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friends.”

The cinematic spots that tell, or rather allude to, TMIMITW’s story depict, in Bondian snippets, a globe-trotting adventurer, a spy, a scholar, an animal lover (he frees a grizzly from a trap), a husky-voiced Lothario with a philosophical bent. When he addresses the camera, in formal wear with shirt-collar unbuttoned, he’s surrounded by a de rigueur bevy of gorgeous women — but his cool gravitas stands in stark relief to the keg-party mayhem, talking critters and desperate-to-please sports tie-ins typically thought essential for coaxing young males to buy six-packs. Themed ads with titles like “On Wingmen” find the silver-maned gentleman dispensing such wisdom as: “It only takes one person to talk to a woman.”

The agency behind all this comparatively soulful mirth is Euro RSCG Worldwide, an industry heavyweight with a passel of major clients. Judged by any conventional yardstick, the firm’s campaign has been madly successful: UTalkMarketing.com reports that sales of Dos Equis climbed by 17% in a period of 2009 during which imported beer dropped by 11% overall. The commercials, meanwhile, earned a Titanium Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, recognizing “the world’s top integrated advertising campaign.” “According to beer marketing experts,” notes UTalkMarketing, “never has advertising played such an important role in building an import brand.”

Yet RSCG’s creative team stands out from the pack not merely for inventing an effective, catchy campaign but also for harboring a revolutionary ethos. It has taken the occasion of the global recession to reject the idea of “hyperconsumption” in favor of “mindful consumption,” which is to say advertising geared not to the accumulation of stuff (or the stuffing of pie holes) but to the pursuit of experience. They invented TMIM, in other words, as a playful appeal to people who want to lead more interesting lives.

To read the complete article at Editorial Emergency, click here.