Cin­co de Mayo makes for a poten­tial­ly com­pli­cat­ed mar­ket­ing moment. Like St. Patrick’s Day, per­haps, it is a hol­i­day with some­what fuzzy ori­gins for the gen­er­al U.S. pop­u­lace and it’s one that is also close­ly aligned with rev­el­ry. And that makes it easy for brands to make cost­ly errors.

At the same time, while it would be a mis­take to look at it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gen­uine­ly con­nect with the Lati­no pop­u­la­tion, it’s still a day Amer­i­can con­sumers in gen­er­al pay atten­tion to and talk about online, which means there is nev­er­the­less an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect.

To wit: Per Top­sy, the hash­tag #Cin­code­Mayo was gen­er­at­ing 16,000 tweets per hour on May 5.

And those tweets include plen­ty of brand mes­sages – par­tic­u­lar­ly from the food and bev­er­age indus­try – such as posts from Avo­ca­dos from Mex­i­co with #Cel­e­brate­Cin­co, as well as Old El Paso and Skin­ny­girl Cock­tails, among many oth­ers.

Thank you @lorenagarcia for a won­der­ful #AvoChat! Aho­ra si… let’s #Cel­e­brate­Cin­co! https://t.co/SNTPkiPkPF

— Avo­ca­dos From Mex­i­co (@AvosfromMexico) May 5, 2015

“I think many mar­keters treat Cin­co de Mayo as a nov­el­ty hol­i­day like Star Wars Day or Fri­day the 13th – tweet some­thing rel­e­vant and fes­tive, and call it a day,” said Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Enlight­en.

5 Tips For Happy Cinco De Mayo Marketing

So what else do mar­keters need to know about this poten­tial­ly tricky moment?

Tip 1: Cinco de Mayo Isn’t Mexico’s Independence Day

Per History.com, Cin­co de Mayo com­mem­o­rates the Mex­i­can Army’s defeat of the French at the Bat­tle of Puebla in the Fran­co-Mex­i­can War. Mex­i­co cel­e­brates its Inde­pen­dence Day on Sep­tem­ber 16.

Tip 2: Cinco de Mayo Is An American Holiday

“I think the way we look at it from Boost’s per­spec­tive is that Cin­co de Mayo is an Amer­i­can hol­i­day and we use it as an excuse to drink, like on St. Patrick’s Day,” said Jay Lle­do, social media man­ag­er at 180LA who works on the agency’s Boost Mobile account. “For Boost, so many of our cus­tomers are Mex­i­can and Mex­i­can-Amer­i­can, so…we don’t want to come off as a brand that doesn’t know our audi­ence.” As a result, Lle­do said Boost will “do some posts here and there,” but, in gen­er­al, “it’s not some­thing we want to engage with.”

Tip 3: Cinco de Mayo Is An Opportunity To Educate

That being said, Lle­do notes brands can poten­tial­ly use Cin­co de Mayo to teach con­sumers about the day with visu­al and/or engag­ing con­tent, such as mul­ti­ple choice ques­tions that ask con­sumers what Cin­co de Mayo actu­al­ly is, not­ing that was one idea Boost threw around when the brand and agency were brain­storm­ing ideas for the hol­i­day.

Sauza Tequi­la for one is going this route with its #Sauza­Truths effort, a series of short videos that answer ques­tions such as why we cel­e­brate Cin­co de Mayo.

Why do we cel­e­brate #Cin­code­Mayo? Watch & learn some #Sauza­Truths! https://t.co/6zZz7kDrKK — Sauza® Tequi­la (@Sauza) May 2, 2015

Tip 4: Go Lighthearted

The oth­er way to approach the hol­i­day is to sim­ply embrace it for what it is – a day for Amer­i­can con­sumers to drink, Lle­do said.

For its part, dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Zog Dig­i­tal agrees. It pro­vides some pret­ty com­mon sense Cin­co de Mayo tips on its blog, along the fol­low­ing insight: “Many peo­ple cel­e­brate the hol­i­day by let­ting loose, so don’t be afraid to make peo­ple laugh if it’s in line with your brand’s mes­sage.”

Tip 5: Make It Visual

Over­all, Wegert said mar­ket­ing sur­round­ing the event should be visu­al and pull in images and videos from social sites like Insta­gram, where con­sumers will like­ly share lots of con­tent.

5 Brands Getting Cinco De Mayo Right

Now let’s look at five exam­ples of cam­paigns suc­cess­ful­ly lever­ag­ing Cin­co de Mayo and relat­ed con­sumer inter­est.

Sauza 901

Justin Timberlake’s tequi­la brand made waves on May 4 when it released a series of videos fea­tur­ing its founder in the role of a washed-up lime named Rick “Sour” Vane who bemoans his fate because con­sumers don’t want/need limes with tequi­la any­more because Sauza 901 is so smooth.

The Beam Sun­to­ry brand is push­ing the hash­tag #NoLimes­Need­ed, which, per Top­sy, was used about 3,500 times between Cua­tro and Cin­co de Mayo.

In addi­tion, the videos had about 87,000 views in their first day, with the most pop­u­lar video up to about 383,000 views by May 5.

Patron

Anoth­er tequi­la brand, Patrón, recent­ly released what it calls “an immer­sive vir­tu­al real­i­ty expe­ri­ence that lever­ages inno­v­a­tive Ocu­lus tech­nol­o­gy to trans­port peo­ple on an edu­ca­tion­al and excit­ing vir­tu­al jour­ney to the Hacien­da Patrón dis­tillery in the High­lands of Jalis­co, Mex­i­co.”

In oth­er words, con­sumers who can’t jet to Mex­i­co for an in-per­son tour can now see the dis­tillery via VR.

The so-called Art of Patrón Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Expe­ri­ence is “a one-of-a-kind sen­so­r­i­al immer­sion, seen from the per­spec­tive of a bee, fly­ing on a breath­tak­ing up-close and per­son­al visu­al jour­ney that begins in the agave fields and con­tin­ues through the gates of the Hacien­da Patrón dis­tillery, show­cas­ing the sights and sounds of Patrón’s actu­al pro­duc­tion, aging and bot­tling.”

The brand says the 360-degree vir­tu­al real­i­ty expe­ri­ence “cap­tures the every­day, authen­tic process and…allows par­tic­i­pants to wit­ness, first­hand, the care and atten­tion to detail that goes into every bot­tle.”

The Art of Patrón Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Expe­ri­ence was filmed at the Hacien­da Patrón in Jalis­co using a spe­cial­ized drone that was cus­tom-built for the project, which was out­fit­ted with sev­en GoPro cam­eras and oper­at­ed by a licensed drone pilot.

Patrón says con­sumers will be able to access the expe­ri­ence at Patrón events, edu­ca­tion­al sem­i­nars and at select on- and off-premise retail­ers. A 360-degree web expe­ri­ence will also be post­ed on the Art of Patrón web­site includ­ing behind-the-scenes footage.

“An inno­v­a­tive spir­it is what built Patrón, and to this day, it not only defines our prod­ucts, but also how we tell our brand sto­ry,” said Lee Applbaum, glob­al chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer at Patrón Spir­its, in a state­ment. “Con­sumers are increas­ing­ly eager to learn the sto­ries behind the prod­ucts and brands they enjoy. It’s rel­a­tive­ly easy to write brand edu­ca­tion mate­ri­als or shoot a video, but that does­n’t always cap­ture the full expe­ri­ence. What we’ve cre­at­ed, using the very lat­est VR tech­nol­o­gy, is an authen­tic, inti­mate and unprece­dent­ed look inside our pri­vate Hacien­da doors, sec­ond only to vis­it­ing in per­son.”

Dos Equis/Camarena

Because Cin­co de Mayo falls on a week­day again this year, Dos Equis’ Most Inter­est­ing Man in the World once again encour­aged con­sumers to cel­e­brate on Sat­ur­day, or Dos de Mayo, instead.

His video plea, which also ref­er­ences the Ken­tucky Der­by and the May­weath­er-Pac­quiao fight, has about 11,000 views.

Accord­ing to a press release, the brand deliv­ered card­board cutouts of the Most Inter­est­ing Man to the first 1,000 fans that sub­mit­ted a “leg­end line” or an “I don’t always…”-line on the brand’s Face­book page. Dos Equis also asked fans to share the most extra­or­di­nary way they plan to cel­e­brate Cin­co with the hash­tag #Dos­De­Mayo. Per Top­sy, #Dos­De­Mayo gen­er­at­ed about 4,000 tweets in the past month.

“With Dos de Mayo, we’ve been able to put a remark­able twist on the Cin­co de Mayo hol­i­day the past two years,” said Andrew Katz, vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing for Dos Equis, in a state­ment. “This year is no dif­fer­ent – we’re excit­ed to give fans an oppor­tu­ni­ty, whether they’re at home or at bars nation­wide, to kick off their most inter­est­ing Cin­co, on Dos de Mayo, and make it the biggest Sat­ur­day of their year.”

Camare­na Tequi­la had a sim­i­lar cam­paign, ask­ing fans to pledge to #SaveCin­co by cel­e­brat­ing on Sat­ur­day, May 2. The hash­tag gen­er­at­ed about 1000 tweets.

Taco Bell

On May 5, Taco Bell launched its hottest sauce pack­et ever, Dia­blo, which will be avail­able for a lim­it­ed time.

“We’re all famil­iar with Verde, Mild, Hot and Fire, but if there’s one thing we keep hear­ing from our fans, it’s that they want more heat,” the brand says. “Dia­blo will deliv­er just that – made with a vari­ety of pep­pers includ­ing aji pan­ca, chipo­tle and chili, Dia­blo packs a punch with a ‘we don’t give a shishi­to’ atti­tude.”

In addi­tion, the brand has declared May 5 “Nation­al Break­fast Defec­tor Day” and announced via Periscope that it would be giv­ing out free bis­cuit tacos.

LIVE on #Periscope: Taco Bell Announce­ment ? https://t.co/iFCfkyEtal

— Taco Bell (@tacobell) April 29, 2015

Per Taco Bell, its Break­fast Defec­tors cam­paign “[empow­ers] peo­ple to change their morn­ing rou­tine and enjoy the next gen­er­a­tion of break­fast at Taco Bell.”

How do you think brands should treat hol­i­days like Cin­co de Mayo?