71% of the Brazilian population comes from the CDE classes: +148MM people.

During crisis periods, the alcoholic beverages category suffers: 55% stop buying, 21% buy less of the same brand and 20% exchange for cheaper brands.

While studying the northeastern region we could identify a trend of local pride as an answer to hard times.

Regarding cassava family farmers in northeastern Brazil:

Low-income farming families have poor work conditions. There's no safety during farming and processing cassava and they are usually exploited by third parties when selling their production.

Processing plants fail to meet essential health & security workplace requirements. For this reason, they generally don’t have government licenses nor register.

90% of local producers lack skills that ensure stable, quality output. In despair due to such conditions, the young generation of farmers flee to urban centers to try to make a living with no guarantees (unemployment is growing).

We identified that although people from northeastern Brazil are feeling left behind during this crisis, they are proud to be born there. At the same time, we could see how family farmers reality was precarious.

Our creative idea can be synthesized as “Proudly Local.” It dialogues with consumer’s emotional needs to push positive cultural impact at the same time it brings local production as an asset.

Execution uses strong cultural icons of each state in the product labels. Pernambuco has the state’s flag revisited, Maranhão uses historical tiles from the capital city and Ceará will bring the Jangada, a typical rudimentary marine vehicle.

Each brand is oriented to sponsor the local community from being a part of cultural events to even refurbishing humble bars. The whole idea traces back to local production and positive social impact that investments and agreements bring to the community and family farmers.

In Pernambuco (project kickstart’s state), we had an anthropological expedition to understand how the local community could be involved in the beer production, which ingredient to use, and how we could make a positive impact in their work conditions.

At the same time, we were also studying low price beer consumers and their relationship with bars and local culture, through ethnographic and design research methods.

Our strategy consists in telling this complex story easily since local production and origin statements are characteristic of premium consumer niches and are not familiar to low price consumers. To do so, we created a cultural artifact: beer produced locally, with a local ingredient from family farms and cultural storytelling to connect all these dots and raise the region’s self-esteem.

Afterward, this strategy was and will be replicated in other states, bringing better futures as we go.

Jun-Dec 2017 Immersion & Creation

Anthropological and design research; Competitors analysis; Focus groups and Quantitative Research with brand hypothesis. Nossa de Pernambuco (kickstart state) brand development.

Jan-Sept 2018 Investment & Development

Company investments (around 2MM dollars) in structure, people training, and cassava manufacturing chain. Regional government agreements. Liquid development and consumer testing for approval.

Sept 2018 Nossa de Pernambuco launch

2.

Jun-Dec 2018 Immersion & Creation / Investment & Development

The whole process in the state of Maranhão.

Dec 2018 Magnífica do Maranhão launch.

3.

Sept 2018 - April 2019 Immersion & Creation / Investment & Development

The whole process in the state of Ceará

May 2019 Legítima do Ceará launch.

4.

Jan/2019 Immersion & Creation

New brand in other state and region (not northeast). Expansion to other states will continue.

Consumers are using the brands as carnival costumes and birthday party themes.

Sales teams and local communication agencies treat the brands like it is their own.

Client is using this project as a global benchmark whether it’s to inspire brand executions or strategic planning.

Family farmers openly declare that their lives are better now and have good hope in the future.

In six months...

Social: 370 families contemplated. 850 families until 2023.

Communication: 4 million people impacted, 158 media reports, 256 associated hashtags.

Sales: 22,7% low price market share in Pernambuco and +50% of repurchase. In Maranhão, it’s the lower price on bars with 68% higher profit margin, regarding category average.

Ambev expects to at least double the volume in all brands in 5 years. Project will also happen in other regions of Brazil, with different ingredients and new value chain developments.