Turning Mahou's oldest ritual — Clásica or Cinco Estrellas — into the same choice that drives Squid Game. Vamos a pasarnos el juego.
Find Mahou's role in a universe built on tension — without mirroring its darkness.
How the case was engineered
Section A–A′ / 06 phasesMahou means something. Just not to them.
Spain's beer — market leader, family-owned, a century poured one caña at a time. 2025 exposed the crack: revenue down 1.9%, profit down 12.6%, volume down 4.7%. But the numbers are the symptom. The asset at risk is what Mahou means, and to whom.
Strong meaning. Wrong generation.
Mahou isn't a brand without significance — its significance belongs to someone else. Ordering one says something about you: your parents' Madrid, your parents' bar, your parents' way of going out. Gen Z isn't rejecting the beer. They're declining the badge.
Picking a side is how we say who we are.
A team, a flavour, a tribe — small everyday declarations of identity, with a real thrill in the rivalry. In Spain, drinkers already choose: Clásica or Cinco Estrellas. Squid Game makes that instinct life-or-death. In real life it's just a can in your hand.
The choice was already happening. We made it visible.
Mahou's drinkers already split in two — Clásica or Cinco Estrellas. A binary they perform every time they order. Squid Game builds its entire tension on the same mechanic: forced to choose a side, everything at stake.
Vamos a pasarnos el juego.
No Squid Game aesthetics pasted onto Mahou. We took the brand's existing binary as the foundation and let the series' tension amplify what Mahou was already doing. The can you choose tells the world which side you're on.
Two sides, built into the media itself.
Two hero spots, one per side. Two facing billboards in Madrid — you couldn't see both at once, you had to choose which to face. Social and influencers pushed the dynamic digital. Supermarket, on-trade and Mad Cool turned every round into a declaration.
