Aeromexico: When a brand plays the cultural heritage card

The international travel market is reaching its all-time high in 2025. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates international visitor spending of $2.1 trillion this year, exceeding the previous peak of $1.9 trillion in 2019. This sector alone represents 10.3% of global GDP. So, all in all, an industry with huge business potential. But one that is also extremely competitive and where customer loyalty is increasingly volatile.

Over the years, many airlines (if not all, outside of the low-cost segment) have played the card of cultural heritage to attract both domestic as well as international travellers, successfully and unsuccessfully at times.

Today, let’s take a look at Aeromexico. This is a brand that stands out for its simplicity and great embodiment of its home nation’s cultural values and expression. Let’s run through some of its most successful recent campaigns and how they anchor themselves in the brand’s enduring cultural ambassador role.

Witty and proud

Throughout the years, the tone of Aeromexico has evolved but its purpose and full commitment to representing the heart and core of Mexican culture have remained.

In 2019, during Trump’s first presidency, the brand responded in its own witty way to the “Wall” project and exerted their true pride of being Mexican. With the “DNA test discount” viral campaign, it demonstrated the influence and spread of their culture across the US territory inviting winners to travel to Mexico on their airline at a discounted rate thanks to a simple DNA test. The more Mexican ancestry you had, the greater the discount. This highly acclaimed and awarded coup not only created FOMO from those who took part, it also created quite a lot of buzz for the brand across media outlets and social channels in the US, Mexico and beyond.

Shortly after came the CV19 pandemic, which put many airline companies, including Aeromexico, under huge amounts of financial pressure. The company underwent a Chapter 11 restructuring process in 2021 that shaved billions off its debt following a US bankruptcy-court hearing. Time had come to adopt a “lower-risk, reputation-safe marketing” strategy says Brand Consultant Ileana Coppoli.

Female empowerment and cultural heritage

In 2024, Aeromexico launched a campaign centred on cultural heritage and female empowerment by introducing new crew uniforms designed in collaboration with the Mexican brand Yakampot. Part of a visual identity refresh, the campaign and brand took a stance on Mexican heritage by celebrating and supporting the artistry and tradition of female artisans. Over 230 female artisans from Chiapas contributed to the project, creating handcrafted embroidery for each uniform. Amplified across various channels and industry exhibitions, this initiative positioned Aeromexico as an ambassador of contemporary Mexico while celebrating its longstanding artisan and tapestry know-how.

Honouring a Mexican icon, Lucha Libre

This year, the brand comes back strong with “Aeromexicanos”, a testimony to the longstanding and internationally renowned domestic tradition of lucha libre (Mexican wrestling). The campaign is a levelled, inspiring and pride-driven statement. “Aeromexico is arguably Mexico’s top lovemark: a private company perceived as a national ambassador. “Aeromexicanos” continues the brand’s tradition of culturally proud storytelling.” highlights Ileana.

Alongside Mexican hats and painted skulls from the Dia de los Muertos, the colourful lucha libre masks are a cultural pillar of Mexican culture overseas. But how does it land with a local audience? Let’s take a look at the history of lucha libre and its place in Mexican culture to date.

What is Lucha Libre?

Lucha libre was born in the 1930’s hitting its golden age twenty years later, in the 1950’s. Traditionally associated with the urban working class (and looked down upon by the middle and upper class), lucha libre presented a new innovative take on sports, adding a dramatization setup of heroes (técnicos) taking on villains (rudos). The local perception of the sport evolved as it gained more momentum and international coverage, with the middle and upper classes analysing it through a social and cultural lens and portraying it as a symbol of Mexican modernity and identity. A family, cross-generational and community-based event, it grew to become a widespread tradition. In 2022, 32.6% of Mexicans described themselves as a fan and 50.9% had attended at least one live show according to a Consulta-Mitofsky survey. In 2018, Mexico City even declared lucha libre an “Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Capital”. Despite having long been a gender-exclusive sport, gradual efforts were being deployed to extend it to women and members of the LGBTQ+ community with the rise of the “exticos”, the drag or transgender wrestlers (even if there still is a long way to go for equity).

Why Lucha Libre & the shared cultural mantra

So, beyond the recognition the sport has domestically and internationally, why is lucha libre a good fit for Aeromexico?

When analysing cultural match between a brand and a community, we can break culture down into four pillars: language, symbols, norms and values. The latter is an important marker to assess suitability in the long run because as Aeromexico proved it language and semiotic tend to evolve through time. So, let’s run through a quick analysis of lucha libre and Mexican cultures to understand their common ground, which is extensive. It can be broken into four main aspirational values:

·       Honour, integrity, loyalty and solidarity

·       Community, tradition and family

·       Identity based on heritage, tradition and ritual

·       Festivity, humour, spectacle and creativity

Not bad a context for a brand whose values are anchored in national pride, trust, warmth and global reach.

Digging deeper into cultural values and norms, Ileana Coppoli notes “The flight metaphor in the ad is central: wrestlers “fly” in acrobatic leaps, defying gravity just like an aircraft. In this new campaign, the story is told from an underdog’s perspective. Mexicans have always celebrated those who stand up to giants – from a defeated tlatoani to a high-flying luchador. This is reflective of the nation’s past and major historical events from the foundational wounds of the Conquest to the Cinco de Maio and the 1910 Revolution”. She concludes: “There is a general fatigue with outrage advertising. In the current context, unifying, nostalgic narratives perform better on brand favorability than another border joke. Pragmatically, if the brand wants to truly score on the long-term trust metrics, they could consider integrating real support and action such as grants and sponsorship for the lucha community and broaden representation to women, child prodigies or exóticos in the next chapters.”

Authenticity comes through actions, not only through words. This is something the brand executed upon well in their 2024 campaign. It is a determining factor in long-term brand trust and engagement. One that can define or destroy a brand that plays the cultural heritage card. Let’s see how Aeromexico responds to this in the coming months.

 A big thank you to Ileana Coppoli and Beatriz Peña for their contribution.