• Situation

The Brazilian Carnival is one of the most closely contested segments of the beer market. The market and the platform are controlled by local brands with a long history in the Carnival. Amstel is a Dutch beer with less than three years in the local market, where it grows as a challenger of the mainstream category, which all of its competitors and sponsors of the Brazilian Carnival are part of.

• Brief

The brand is not a sponsor, but it needs to generate awareness through an activation that generates brand experience with our specific target audience. Our investment is 30 times smaller than the competitors'.

• Objectives

Be a relevant brand in the Brazilian carnival, offering services and functional brand experiences for our specific target.

Brazilians like ridiculously cold beer. Amstel Beerboard Freezer used this cultural insight to create an innovative and convenient billboard during the Brazilian Carnival.

We mapped out the bus stops that would be on the route to the city's main street parades, and we adapted them with a technology that froze beers within seconds. Each billboard was equipped with an interior technology based on solid carbon dioxide (CO2) that reached up to -70 °C [-94 °F]. When in contact with the aluminum can, it is cooled in 60 seconds.

You just had to put the can in the hole, press the timer, and the beer got ice cold. So for the first time, revelers were able to bring together two of the things they like best: cold beer and Carnival, and our brand has managed to be in the heart of the Carnival.

• Target audience

Men and women aged 25 and older who enjoyed the Carnival on the streets of Belo Horizonte, which is one of the largest street carnivals in Brazil. More than four million people were estimated to have filled the city's streets during the Carnival.

• Approach

In the city’s largest street parades, it is almost impossible to get a cold beer, since most beers are sold in bars or specific sponsor areas far from the heart of the party. At an average temperature of 38 °C [100 °F], beers get warm quickly.

*Brazil’s Street Carnival is the largest street party in the world. The avenues where our brand had billboards received over 4.5 million people during the five days of Carnival.

• Call to action

Freeze your beer.

• Implementation

The billboards were installed on the main avenues of Belo Horizonte and where the main carnival parades passed. The Carnival of Belo Horizonte had approximately 4.5 million people during the five days of Carnival.

• Media channels and integration

Bus Stop in Belo Horizonte city.

• Timeline

• Sep/Feb (6 months) - Development as tests.

• March 1 - Transportation and implementation.

• March 2 - First day of Carnival and also our air-date.

• March 6 - The end of the 5th day of Carnival and of our special OOH.

• Scale

10 Special Instalations in Belo Horizonte city (MG State)

Amstel was considered by consumers one of the most remembered brands in the Carnival (TOP 10 Carnival brands) and with only 3% of our competitors' budget, we impacted more than four million people on the streets.