The rum brand is deepening its MTV Video Music Awards presence through a returning category, original programming and a cocktail-led cultural platform.
BACARDÍ Rum is returning as the official spirits partner of the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards for a fourth consecutive year, extending a relationship that now reaches beyond event sponsorship. BACARDÍ is helping bring back the Best Dance category after a seven-year absence, while adding original content and a signature cocktail programme to the partnership. The VMAs were scheduled for September 27 in Los Angeles, with the ceremony set to air on CBS and stream through Paramount+ in the United States.
The category’s return places dance at the centre of the brand’s next chapter of its global Do What Moves You campaign. Best Dance, last presented in 2019, recognises artists whose work encourages audiences to move and participate, giving BACARDÍ a platform that connects music programming with a broader social and cultural expression. The company and the VMAs describe dance as a shared form of music engagement that crosses language, background and generations.
BACARDÍ has also partnered with Paramount Media Labs on It All Starts With a Beat, an original content campaign built around Latin-inspired remixes and choreography. The programme features producer Caleb Calloway and dancers and choreographers Dexter Carr, Gabi Barra and Dario Boatner, with creative work drawing on tracks associated with earlier Best Dance winners, including songs by Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and En Vogue. The custom content was created for broadcast during the VMAs.
The partnership extends into the event’s drinks offer through four cocktails: the Moonwalk Mojito, BACARDÍ Agua Fresca, BACARDÍ Coco Colada Spritz and BACARDÍ 808. The Moonwalk Mojito is identified as the official cocktail of the 2026 VMAs, while the wider line-up combines rum, fruit, lime, soda and bitters across serves designed for the music event. That combination gives the brand several points of contact across programming, talent and hospitality rather than relying on logo visibility alone.
For BACARDÍ, the arrangement illustrates how a spirits partnership can be structured as a cultural property, with the brand participating in the format of the show as well as its surrounding experiences. The returning award category supplies a clear editorial hook, the Paramount Media Labs collaboration provides a content vehicle, and the cocktails translate the association into an on-site ritual. The company’s fourth year with the VMAs therefore places continuity and creative participation alongside conventional event presence.
