When Yeyo Met Quavondo

Tuesday May 17th, 2011

One day in early 2010 Quavondo checked his voicemail. He had a message from Jon Bullinger—founder of Yeyo Tequila—asking Quavondo to give him a ring. He called Jon back within five minutes. Delightfully surprised with the quick response time, Jon told Quavondo he was looking for someone to shoot a Yeyo ad campaign. Quavondo accepted and the rest is history.

Before the shoot began, Quavondo went through wardrobe with the male models. They had all brought nice suits. This didn’t work for Quavondo who wanted to avoid making the Yeyo brand seem stiff with a bunch of business guys standing around. He decided to put one model, Alex, in a tank top. Alex was perfect for the character that Quavondo wanted to portray, as he had a very clear vision for the shoot,

I wanted to create a dichotomy of the two personalities and the fact the Yeyo Tequila is the bridge between them, and that Yeyo is for all kinds of people.

After the success of the first campaign, Yeyo came back to Quavondo last summer asking him to shoot a second campaign. Quavondo came up with a concept that was somewhat of a sequel to his first Yeyo shoot,

I wanted to show that after meeting in the club these two guys have become great friends and now living the life that most dream of. Money, fast cars, jets and girls.

We were able to shut down a runway at Portland International Airport. Forty million dollar jet and two fast cars, I couldn’t have asked for more! But I did. I asked Jon if it would be okay if we open up a casting call/blind drawing for our fans to be involved to generate buzz and excitement. The casting call was for anyone and everyone. If you were a model, you got a chance to be in the campaign, if you were a hair/make-up stylist you got a chance to work on the campaign, if you were a photographer you got a chance to be onset and assist, if your name was drawn and you had nothing to do with the industry, you had the option to just be onset as a bystander and see all the action.

The winner of the blind drawing was a beautiful girl who had never modeled before, and wanted to take a stab at it. I’ll let you look at the final image and decide which one of the two she is.

When Quavondo sat down with the Yeyo team, he also presented them with the idea of a behind the scenes video to add more personality to the campaign. Yeyo went for it telling him, “You can do whatever you want. I trust you,” which as Quavondo says was, “music to my ears.”

Excited, but under a tight deadline, Quavondo scrambled to find videographers. However, he ran out of time so friend Isaac Koval stepped in. Quavondo said, “Isaac did the whole video himself, which is a lot to ask for in one man, but he was up for the task.” The result was a fun and interesting video that successfully promotes a brand without being too “in your face.”

In the end, Yeyo was very pleased with the results and now have Quavondo working on two more campaigns. Keep your eyes peeled for more Yeyo and Quavondo collaborations.

- Maria