São Paulo. 4th most populous city in the world. 12 million inhabitants. 9 million vehicles. 5th worst traffic in the world. The city that never stops almost stops every day. The traffic impacts more than just daily commuters. It’s also responsible for deaths, pollution, inequality and stress.

The city residents live in a contradiction between the individual and collective: society complains about the traffic, but at the same time, no one realizes that they’re part of the problem and the solution as well.

The brief was to raise awareness to the Global Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, part of the 17 goals set by the UN to achieve a better future by 2030. Our main objective was to inspire young audiences to embrace the goal and drive change in their communities.

The idea in a short sentence: the day São Paulo stopped. The film portrays the individuality and selfishness of a man who needs to choose between his family and the car of his dreams.

To blend drama with facts, the story is fictional, but based on shockingly real data:

• São Paulo residents spend on average 36 days in traffic each year, which inspired the endless traffic jam.

• Air pollution kills 20 people in São Paulo each day. That is represented as a cloud of smog that hangs as an omen the whole time.

• Traffic accidents, that kill 30% more than public violence in São Paulo, inspired the accident with the cyclist, and the car thrashing scene.

At the end of the film, we show the corresponding footage with its matching data and reveal that the story is fictional. The numbers behind it are not.

To build hype and engage the audience, an ad sequencing strategy was developed in partnership with YouTube, presenting several short form videos with distinct approaches, such as:

? A breaking news broadcast style 15”, portraying the traffic jam as an actual fact.

? An entertainment 6”, with the traffic jam seen from above and the main title working as a teaser.

? A data driven 15” piece, demonstrating a real data and how it was portrayed in the film.

The movie was supposed to premiere during the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, but the festival was postponed due to the coronavirus crisis. So, the premiere session went on during a digital event on July 29th, promoted by Google, United Nations and Tribeca Festival. The YouTube Ad Sequencing campaign lasted for a month, and aimed to increase people’s interest around our goal after each impression.

In September, the campaign was showcased at the United Nations General Assembly.

The film is yet to be presented in the 2021 edition of the Tribeca Film Festival, in June.

The film campaign successfully drove views to our longform film. The movie had over 100,000 hours of watching time and a 5-minute retention time average, reaching over 74MM people.

Besides all the audience reached and the awareness created, our partners from Google received an honourable mention from the UN SDG Action Awards as one of the most impactful initiatives in 2020.