Vallenato is the main Colombian musical genre. It has been part of the country's culture for more than a century and has inspired singers and great writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, whose Nobel Prize-winning novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’—a book which all Colombians are proud of—echoes this musical genre.

UNESCO recognized Vallenato as Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, because in recent decades, new Vallenato performers have been associated with drug scandals and excess parties—among others problems—generating a bad image for the musical genre and causing people in Colombia to stop perceiving Vallenato as the country’s cultural heritage.

Águila, the most important beer brand in the country, has an intimate relationship with Colombian culture and Vallenato, and needed a way to restore the cultural heritage of this musical genre.

Colombians perceived Vallenato as music related to drugs, excess and scandals instead of seeing it as their country’s cultural heritage with a long, rich history.

We knew that Gabriel García Márquez was inspired by Vallenato to write One Hundred Years of Solitude because he once said: “One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 400-page Vallenato.” So, we decided to honor the author’s words and make his iconic work—Colombia’s pride—sound like Vallenato to demonstrate that this musical genre deserves as much praise as a Nobel Prize.

This musical album, which consists of six songs, is a tribute to Vallenato and One Hundred Years of Solitude. An artist re-interpreted these songs in 6 illustrations which tell the story of the book and place Vallenato at the same level as a Nobel Prize, restoring its cultural status.

To restore Vallenato's cultural status, Cerveza Águila joined forces with one of the greatest symbols of pride and culture in Colombia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, the Nobel Prize-winning novel for literature, whose inspiration comes from Vallenato.

Our target audience was young people who associated Vallenato with drugs and scandals. We had to find a way to change their perception. Our strategy pointed in one direction: Vallenato music itself, this time with a powerful cultural background that would restore its heritage.

Six Vallenato performers drew inspiration from One Hundred Years of Solitude to write and compose 6 songs that tell the story of the book. We launched this musical work through concerts at major festivals in Colombia, Spotify, video clips on YouTube, content on Instagram and Facebook, and influencers, activations, radio, TV and OOH. With this media strategy, we take the Nobel Prize-worthy Vallenato to all of Colombia.

For the release of the One Hundred Years of Solitude Vallenato music Album, we paid the copyright for the book. Then, we worked with artists, writers, journalists and "Gabologos” (experts in the work of García Márquez), who summarized it in 6 parts that respected and covered the author's narrative style and the story of the Nobel Prize.

Then, 6 of the most recognized Vallenato singers in Colombia, among them the Grammy winners Karen Lizarazo and Estaban Nieto, as well as Elder Dayan, Bandera Canta, Chabuco and Margarita, drew inspiration from this material to write the lyrics of the 6 originals songs with the sounds of Vallenato.

We launched the album on Spotify, YouTube, Radio, the artists' social media channels, who together have over 1,970,000 followers, and at the Vallenato Festival in front of thousands of people who attended the event after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

As our main goal was for the campaign to help recover the value and cultural heritage of Vallenato in Colombia, we made our part in that purpose as well as we increased sales of Aguila Beer, which reconnected with its audience through the country's music, art, and culture, helping a Nobel prize in literature which is also a part of the vallenato and colombian tradition, to reach more places in the country than the book have reached until now and leaving a blueprint of the universal literature piece in the memory of the colombian Vallenato music history and heritage, so that the damaged musical genre can be seen again as a human art treasure at level of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Reach: 33.850.421 / Impressions:229.525.322 / Sentiment: 94% Positive / VRR: 67% / Views: 6.379.535 / 104K HL sold - a growth of 22% vs 2020.