MargaRight or MargaWrong: Aubrey Plaza Sets the Record Straight for Cointreau

Pity the poor bartender who runs out of a key ingredient for Aubrey Plaza’s margarita, with the famously acerbic actor announcing that the frosty beverage she’s just been served at a swanky hotel is, literally, garbage.

“Be a dear and go dig a hole and bury this—thank you,” Plaza says to her friend when she learns that her libation does not include Cointreau. She publicly calls out the resident mixologist for the ultimate party foul, which she dubs “a MargaWrong.”

“Anyone order a MargaWrong? No? Didn’t think so,” Plaza says in a new spot for Cointreau, which leans into her deadpan humor and kicks off the legacy brand’s most significant U.S. marketing to date with connected TV, social, digital and audio ads. It’s the second consecutive Hollywood collaboration for the French liqueur after working with actor-writer-producer Dan Levy.

MargaRight

Plaza’s role, which will extend for the rest of the year, is to promote the purist’s recipe for margaritas: tequila, Cointreau and fresh lime juice. That, according to the campaign from creative production house Edisen, is a “MargaRight.”

The alcohol brand, which is more than a century old, was looking for “a lighter, comedic tone” that could convey the product’s “elevated style,” according to Craig Sherman, vice president of marketing at parent company Rémy Cointreau Americas.

Plaza was a solid choice to impart the message because “she can deliver irreverent, fearless honesty that is playful and resonates strongly with people,” Sherman said. The White Lotus star, already a brand devotee, had a hand in shaping the creative, he said. 

“On top of the working script, the improvisation on set was magical,” Sherman said. “The hardest part was deciding what to cut because there was an incredible amount to work with.”

A second commercial also showcases Plaza’s suffer-no-fools personality when she points out a friend’s faux pas in bringing a jug of pre-made margarita mix to her house party. Her pal Bruce has to ditch the uninvited plus-one before she’ll allow him to join the festivities.

Margarita turns 75

As with the backstories of many iconic cocktails, there’s some debate over the margarita’s origins and makeup. Most often, the credit goes to Dallas socialite Margaret “Margarita” Sames, who reportedly came up with the concoction while on an Acapulco vacation in 1948. She served it to her friends, including Hollywood royalty like John Wayne and Lana Turner, and has been quoted as saying, “A margarita without Cointreau is not worth its salt.”

The 75th anniversary of the drink’s “official version” gives Cointreau a hook for its summer marketing and coincides with an explosion of interest in tequila tipples. (The margarita remains the most popular cocktail in America, per The Drinks Business.)

Rémy Cointreau, which has stepped up its U.S. marketing over the past few years, has tapped into the tequila craze and several other booze trends to promote the “global priority brands” in its stable such as Cointreau, Louis XIII cognac, The Botanist gin and Bruichladdich whisky. Rémy Martin got its first Super Bowl ad in February.

There’s been a wave of activity around Cointreau as well, following its 2021 Big Game debut in 15 markets. The brand’s visual identity has been overhauled—the most significant refresh in 140 years—with a bottle redesign, a dapper time-stopping mascot for a late 2022 ad campaign and a new slogan, “Cointreau changes everything.”

The orange-flavored liqueur worked with Levy—along with chefs Sohla El-Waylly and Nyesha Arrington—for summer and holiday campaigns in 2022. The year-long effort centered on a content hub with Entertainment Weekly, plus digital and social videos and posts, which logged more than 67 million views, per the brand. Retail sales bumped up 9% between July and year’s end, according to Nielsen.

The strength of the partnership with Levy inspired the brand to make another celebrity connection, this time with Plaza, an in-demand endorser seen a few months ago in a satire for MilkPEP in which she shilled for a fake “wood milk” product.

Plaza will continue the Cointreau relationship into the upcoming holiday season, with the focus shifting to the vodka-based cosmopolitan.

The brand has “so much more headroom as people continue to learn to make cocktails at home and demand the highest quality ingredients in their cocktails wherever they are,” Sherman said.

The marketing mandate is to be “fresh and different,” he said. “How can we attract attention and create engaging content that is relevant and shareable?”