Paraguay is one of the worst countries in Latam to be a woman: it is in the 23rd position of 25 countries of Latam with deeper gender gap (according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 of the World Economic Forum), and it is in a “feminist emergency” (by the Latin American Network Against Gender Violence).

In that context Brahma, the #1 beer of the country, wanted to take action, taking advantage of its popularity to communicate an awareness message against gender violence, in the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25th).

But although lately the brand has been changing its tone and positioning into a more inclusive and unprejudiced communication, to be appealing to the youngest target segment, it still remains its old sexist advertising in the social imaginary.

We needed to make a stand and accompany the speech with actions.

Brahma beer in Paraguay made a public commitment: to not repeat the mistakes it made with past commercials. For a long time, the brand (and almost all the other beer brands) put women in a role that objectified them.

To show directly how its advertising had been based on harmful stereotypes, Brahma took 3 TV commercials of more than 10 years old and edited them in such a way that they did not have a single second of sexist content. As a result, the pieces became super short, accentuating the message that ‘90% of that commercial could not be aired today.’

We know it is a delicate issue for brands, so we worked since months ago the 25N, understanding what is commemorated, researching how brands talk these days, investigating its relevance in the Paraguayan society. We also made focus group to hear directly from our target group (male and female 19-34 YO) what they think around gender gap, feminism, and violence.

We found that there is space for brands to make a clean slate, as long as the commitment is real, and it lasts over the years.

That is why we chose to make a “mea culpa”: to take responsibility for the past, and the commitment to avoid sexism forever.

On November 25th, we posted the edited commercials in our Twitter account, with a thread explaining the action and our commitment. We also posted the digital videos in Instagram and YouTube. At the same time, we erased all sexiest content present in our owned media. We also consolidated all the information in our website, in a banner home and a tab dedicated to our brand purpose.

524.231 organic impressions

12.703 total interactions

#Brahma became Trending Topic #5 on Twitter Paraguay

+10 PR notes with local and international media

1.756 mentions: 76% positive mentions both from men and women. Mentions peak +91% vs previous period

This initiative was the one that generated the most Earned media in the month for the brand.