In general, street events are not common in Brazil due to extremely strict and restrictive laws. 2 examples are the ‘Silence Law’ and the ‘Noise Law’ which prohibit organisations from running events that rely heavily on audio. In parallel, the ‘Clean City Law’, created in 2006, regulates all visual exterior communication: from ad panels to stores’ facades. This legislation completely banned almost all types of visual advertising in both cities.

Moreover when planning an event, every detail on the organisation, their logistics, health and safety must be approved by local authorities. This involves endless bureaucratic processes and submitting paper work before getting the green light, which discourages many initiatives. Depending on the complexity and size of the events, the process normally takes at least 3 months to be fully approved and involves countless taxes and legal fees.For alcohol brands, it is even more difficult. Broadcast media brands are only permitted to show ads after 11pm. Even though this is not officially prohibited, online publishers are also very cautious and reluctant to run alcohol-related ads.For all these reasons, many advertisers choose to sponsor events and use controlled sites to avoid any of the hassle / cost implications.

To help build hype and excitement around the actual #shotcast event, we took OK Go on a road show of pop-up gigs across Brazil. At the gigs, people received wristbands as though they were going to a rock concert. This directed the audience to cuervocold.com where they could engage with #shotcast, and the other elements of the campaign. In addition to this, we also had online display advertising directing people to take part in #shotcast. This also included a YouTube home page takeover on crucial days in the campaign.

We created the buzz and hype that we were after around Cuervo Cold. Throughout the period of the campaign, we had 183 articles published, which equated to $11.6m worth of media. On top of that, we had 180m media impressions, and achieved a total social media reach of 22.4m people. In terms of people talking about Cuervo Cold, the brand enjoyed a 390% increase in mentions on social media. Also, our coined name, #shotcast, was trending on Twitter in both Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.