Watch out ladies, adventurers, and coconuts, Dos Equis just introduced a new "Most Interesting Man in the World."
The latest actor to play the character popularized by 77-year-old actor Jonathan Goldsmith in the long-running beer campaign is 41-year-old French actor Augustin Legrand.
In a YouTube ad re-introducing the campaign, a rugged Legrand is show navigating through torch-lit caves, running through cobblestone streets with a female friend by his side and a piglet under his arm, and chopping a coconut in half with his bare hands.
At one point the ad shows the new "Most Interesting Man" watching his predecessor in an a commercial playing on a TV behind an old wooden Spanish bar.
"Think anyone will ever be as interesting as him?" asks the leathery bartender.
While the company had reportedly wanted to rethink the campaign, what emerged is similar to when Daniel Craig became the newest actor to play James Bond: A younger, edgier, more athletic protagonist. And as demonstrated in the ad, this one speaks fluent Spanish.
The brand is "trying to reach a new audience” and wants to reach “Spanish-dominant consumers," Andrew Katz, VP of Marketing for Dos Equis, told USA Today — and it wants to reach football fans, too. Dos Equis has signed a sponsorship deal with College Football Playoff, Fortune reports.
In a statement, the company said the new character has "an edgier, more daring persona... Legrand reinvigorates and modernizes the Most Interesting Man to reflect what is interesting to today’s Dos Equis fans and to millennial beer drinkers."
According to the pundits, millennial consumers are more engaged by "true" and "real" experiences and are more willing to give their brand loyalty to products with an ethical backstory. While they're less likely to be aware outside his native France of his dozen or so appearances in mostly French movies and TV miniseries, those younger drinkers may be drawn in by Legrand's activism history. In 2006 he founded a group called the "Children of Don Quixote" which installed 200 tents for the homeless on the banks of the Seine to raise awareness about housing access issues in France.
"The meaning of ‘interesting’ has evolved over the past decade, and this campaign features a new character who reflects what is interesting to today’s Dos Equis drinker,” said Katz in a statement. “With this first glimpse, we’re opening the door to a new world of possibilities for what it means to be interesting."
Legrand has a lot to live up to.
"Enjoy your success," said Goldsmith in a phone interview with NBC News, his only advice for the new him. "You're talking to a very lucky guy."
Freed from the contract that both catapulted and bound him, Goldsmith himself has launched into a new galaxy of adventures, becoming an "editor emeritus" and roving reporter for True.ink. The site describes itself as a "different kind of magazine [that] celebrates The Noble Pursuit, a mix of adventure, expertise, and kindness."
As an example of his reporting duties, Goldsmith spoke to NBC News while driving through Hollywood while on his way to interview Manny Pacquiao, world-famous professional boxer and Senator of the Philippines, while battling him in a chess game.
"I'm fascinated by what makes a champion," said Goldsmith. "What are the secrets of a warrior, what are his fears, how do people arrive at the pinnacle of their careers? What drives them?"
Besides his new journalistic duties, which include a monthly column and filmed versions of his poetry (see above), a book is in the works. There are also acting roles being discussed, said Goldsmith, and two different new brand ambassadorships.
The former spokesman was last seen in a Dos Equis ad retiring his portrayal of the "Most Interesting Man in the World." In the final moments he entered the cockpit of a space ship before his beer company sent him on a one-way ticket to Mars, along with a female companion.
So, what happened after that hatch closed?
"You'd have to ask the blond scientist who passed away from exhaustion," chuckled Goldsmith. "There's life after Mars... I did my part in colonizing the intergalactic areas."
Though, he lamented, "I couldn't get a good drink up there."
