Challenge

Licor 43 needed to grow awareness and credibility with a new American audience, and that is exactly the kind of thing a brand cannot buy its way into. As a niche Spanish liqueur in a category hemmed in by advertising rules, it needed to feel discovered, not advertised.

Influencer marketing is the obvious tool, and also a crowded, formulaic one. A parade of interchangeable sponsored posts from the usual mega-creators would have bought reach without earning any of the cultural credibility the brand needed. Licor 43 needed creators who would make the brand feel like a personal discovery, and proof that the approach resonated with the people who saw it.

The Idea

The client set the platform: “Mix Something New,” and a distinctive creator archetype to cast against: “Experience Collectors.” PriceWeber’s job was to make it real and find the people who could live it.

Not the mainstream, predictable creators everyone else books, but artful people who collect experiences and turn everyday moments into something unexpected: a pianist, a fashion director, a visual storyteller, a mixologist, an author, a Broadway performer. PriceWeber identified and cast each one for credibility and creativity over raw follower count, matched them to the brand’s Carajillo serve, and trusted them to create without a script.

Then anchor the program with a live moment on the industry’s home turf: Licor 43’s Carajillo Kickoff at Tales of the Cocktail, where the right creators could earn the one audience that confers real credibility in spirits, the bartender community itself.

The Work

PriceWeber ran the program end to end, covering casting, content direction, management and measurement, across two chapters and 12 creators in all.

Chapter 1: The Experience Collectors

PriceWeber cast and managed nine creators across New York, Miami and Chicago, each building original Reels and live video around the “Mix Something New” platform and the Carajillo: a pianist and comedian (Kofi B), a fashion director (Ethan Diaz), a visual storyteller (Reyna Noriega), a mixologist (The Educated Barfly), a cocktail curator (Danica), a stylist (Ioannis Adomopoulos), a recipe creator (Jarbae), an author (Franny Arrieta) and a Broadway performer (Sophie Carmen). Select content was amplified through paid whitelisting, the companion paid-media story. Everything was measured by reach, meaning resonance among the people who actually saw it, using weighted averages rather than simple ones, with completion rates and clear guardrails against mixing boosted and organic numbers.

The Work, continued

Chapter 2: The Tales of the Cocktail Activation

For Licor 43’s official Carajillo Kickoff, a high-energy night at The Breezeway at the Ritz in New Orleans in July 2026, with guest bartenders, a live DJ and three exclusive serves (Carajillo 43, Camo Carajillo and GoGo Girl), PriceWeber brought in three more creators to capture the moment live. They included a Tales of the Cocktail Dame Hall of Fame inductee, Tiffanie Barriere, alongside Joanna Lin and Natalie Migliarini. The content ran as in-the-moment event-day Stories, then post-event Reels and a carousel, each tagged to the brand and the event and carrying a clear paid-partnership disclosure.

The Results

The right voices made Licor 43 feel discovered, and the numbers show it landed with the people who saw it, not just the people who scrolled past.

Engagement was the real proof. Measured by reach, among the people who actually saw each post, the program delivered a weighted 5.8% engagement rate against a 3 to 5% industry benchmark, with the strongest creators well above it: Kofi B at 11.4%, Joanna Lin at 7.3%, and recipe creator Jarbae in the 6.5 to 7% range. These were saves, shares and comments from an on-target audience, not passive impressions.

The best content traveled. Jarbae’s lead Reel reached 178,000 views, roughly twice his usual, with thousands of saves and hundreds of new follows. Cocktail curator Danica drove more than 400,000 views and 300,000 accounts reached across two posts, and The Educated Barfly reached a quarter of a million. Much of that reach came from outside the creators’ own followings, meaning new audiences discovering the brand rather than fans being reminded of it.

The Tales of the Cocktail activation did a different, equally valuable job: it earned the brand credibility on the industry’s home turf. A Dame Hall of Fame inductee lent authentic bartender-community endorsement, creator audiences landed squarely on target, and nearly half of some creators’ views came from non-followers.

Most of all, the program was built to learn. It cast for credibility over follower count, measured by reach rather than vanity metrics, and read honestly which creators and formats traveled, so every flight sharpens the casting list for the next.

The creator program ran alongside a flighted paid-media effort. Read how that side of the story played out in A Flight Plan for Awareness.