Guaraná is a longtime sponsor of Brazil women's national soccer team. In the pandemic, stadiums were empty and we had a hard time activating this sponsorship and creating real-life brand experiences. So, we presented our product as a media placement, offering 35 million cans to any brand willing to sponsor Women’s Soccer by replacing our own logo with those who could join us in the fight against inequality. We created a digital first campaign, using our perspective as a sponsor to raise awareness about gender inequality in soccer. This way, we transformed our sponsorship into a social movement.

Brazil is widely known as the country of soccer, but there is a huge gap between investments in men's and women's soccer. Brands invest millions more in men's soccer than in women's, always under the excuse that men's soccer offers more visibility to them. Even though gender representation is an important issue most brands, they fail to make this point valid in one of the most representative places of Brazilian society: soccer itself. As a longtime sponsor of the Brazilian Women's Soccer Team, Guaraná Antarctica had to do something about it.

The idea is pretty simple: Guaraná Antarctica is the second highest selling soda in Brazil. Every day, millions of people lay their eyes on our cans: an audience as big as any TV show, Digital Influencer or YouTube channel. So, we decided to make something that was entirely new: transforming our own product into a media placement and offering 35 million cans to whichever brand that was willing to invest money in women's soccer. The new logos were printed on them, replacing ours.

The strategy was based on consumers' behavior: we created videos and OOH spots inviting brands to put their logo on our cans in exchange for investment in women's soccer. Then, we reached out to soccer fans, gender representation groups and even associations of soccer fans to create a social movement to make our offer widely known by every other brand. The hashtag #ApoieOFutFeminino (#SupportWomenSoccer) was widely used by women's soccer fans even outside the context of the campaign, which made our strategy even more relevant.

We launched two videos: one aimed at brands and one aimed at soccer fans. Both detailed our offer, which was also brought to the streets by OOH spots strategically placed in front of buildings with major brands: banks, restaurants, corporate towers.

The invitation lasted for two weeks: we targeted soccer fans, gender representation enthusiasts and associations of soccer fans to ask other brands to join our effort.

After more than 100 brand subscriptions, we announced 10 that would join us: Burger King, Lay's, Avon, Puma, ESPN, Hall's, BMG, Vivo, Gol and Consul, paying USD 100,000 each to sponsor Women's Soccer in Brazil. The announcement was made in our channels, as well as in the other brands’ channels. We sent kits with the cans to relevant influencers, journalists and soccer fans to make the message reach even further.

After that, 35 millions cans with the new logos reached supermarkets and stores.

The campaign was widely covered by Brazilian media, both through the invitation and also the announcement of the chosen brands. The campaign hashtag #ApoieOFutFeminino (#SupportWomenSoccer) is still being used by women's soccer fans, having organically reached Twitter Trending Topics two times during the campaign. We had over 160M earned media impressions.

The most important results are coming now: over 100 brands applied to the spot. 10 of them were chosen and donated $100,000 each to sponsor Women’s Soccer. Overall, the campaign raised $2.5M for women's soccer academies. Some brands went further: Puma offered its factories to make soccer kits for free, the bank BMG fully sponsored a women's soccer club, and ESPN decided to broadcast Women's National Finals for the first time ever.

At the end, we used our product to spread a powerful message in stores in every corner of Brazil, reaching places where traditional media is not present.