The Rise of Topo Chico

When Marketing is the Story

The narrative of products that have transitioned from working-class standbys to hipster (or just yuppie) favorites is nothing new. Past Blue Ribbon is, of course, the pioneer and the obvious example. But Carhartt, Red Wings, and Pendleton are also handy cases. By now, the narrative is pretty well-worn — working-class standby becomes ironically commodified. In 2016, we’ve reached a late period in this process in which most adopted hipster brands are in a stage of containment, widely available and generally signifying nothing much.

Perhaps in 2005 or so, the story of Pabst Blue Ribbon marketing itself to the Portland bike crowd was something novel. Novel because of the new means of appropriation — hip group recuperates declining working-class brand — and novel because the company resurged by actively courting the market. The same has basically occurred with other salty, storied working-class brands: Filson, Woolrich Woolen Mills, Dickies, etc. Some similar traction has also benefited a number of long-standing outdoor brands (Patagonia, Danner) and a few Latin American import brands as well (Tecate and Topo Chico).

The story of commodification, at this point, is so familiar that there is nothing surprising or intriguing about a narrowly defined set of utilitarian, low-cost, working-class or Latinx products becoming adopted by American hipsters. The news is tired. And yet, Topo Chico, a New Leonese water sold for over a century, exported to the US for nearly three decades, and actively commodified by hipsters for four years (mostly in Austin), has now become a news item in mid-2016.

Just in the past few days, Marketplace and The New York Times have run stories about the brand’s ascendency. In her article for the paper of record, Kate Murphy offers an ode to the brand and its supplementary function in Austin’s ongoing reputation enhancement. The story largely (but, I guess, not surprisingly) focuses on the marketing of the water. As Murphy writes, “Efforts to market the water to a nonimmigrant audience began only recently. They have been limited primarily to sponsoring music and food festivals along with retweeting raves about Topo Chico on social media and sending free cases to fans who have some degree of influence, like musicians, music producers, chefs and bartenders.”

Caroline Covington, writing for Marketplace, similarly touts the product’s brand strategy: “Topo Chico also sponsors trendy events like Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza in Chicago. [Topo Chico marketing manager David] De la Garza said his goal is to broaden the brand’s reach and these events are one way to do it.”

As both Murphy and Covington make clear, the water’s popularity is in part thanks to the work of an aggressive guerrilla marketing campaign and in part the way the brand easily slots into the mold left by Patagonia, Tecate, and all the rest.

So, with the agile marketing of the PR crowd and the brand’s established reputation of authenticity, a media darling has been born. But why have we let marketing be the story here? Why are we allowing a product strategy to become the news? Certainly there are other ways to tell this story that don’t privilege the most uninspiring, uninteresting, and calculated element of the product’s success. There’s the narrative of the company itself and (I suppose) the narrative of how the product became a distinguishing cultural commodity that allowed Austin to further distinguish itself (much like Club-Mate in Berlin).

When a story ceases to be about a subculture, or even a company, but the machinations of social media strategists and marketing managers, news just becomes an extension of brand strategy. With stories like this, the financial aspects become utterly transparent: Topo Chico gets free advertising, Austin gets more hype, and the news outlets get more mileage out of the old narrative of brand adoption. Stories that would have once been about a company, a family lineage, or culture (a topic which these stores purport to be about), now read like a presentation at the cocktail hour of a marketing conference.

In sum, we’ve allowed news stories to become extensions of marketing strategy. The reason? There’s no difference anymore between journalism and marketing. Maybe that’s old news, but the current clamor for Topo Chico makes the process perfectly clear.