Tramontina, the biggest barbecue utensils brand in Brazil, became a cultural icon in Brazilian football and created a new media channel by exploiting a loophole that allowed a team to win the National Championship, but not a trophy right away. The brand did something no one thought to: instead of the trophy, a grill was raised by the winners. With the Trophy Grill, Tramontina invaded the football ad space and used an innovative channel strategy that focused heavily on organic buzz and Brazilians’ love for football to create a name for itself as a respected brand in the field.

Atletico Mineiro, one of the biggest football teams in Brazil, was on its way to becoming national champion for the first time in fifty years. Its fans were expecting to make this celebration as big as possible, except for one detail: Atletico was doing so well, it would win the championship a few rounds before they could officially receive the winner’s cup - how could fans celebrate such an important moment without the trophy? And how could they wait for the trophy to finally celebrate?

That’s where Tramontina, the biggest Churrasco/Barbecue Utensils company in the country and an culturally important part of any celebratory barbecue came in. With a very clear goal - to sell more barbecue grills - they used their cultural relevance and knowledge around all things barbecue to make up for the missing champions cup and elevate Atletico’s party to the best it could be.

Tramontina had a simple, yet powerful insight: one of its grills, and the one that needed to be sold the most, kind of looked like a trophy. With steel arms added to it, it could light up the celebration that Atletico’s fans were waiting more than fifty years for.

That’s right - Tramontina wanted to use its own “cup” to fill in for the Brazilian Championship’s trophy, helping give Atlético’s fans the party they deserved and becoming the spotlight in the biggest football championship in Brazil. Thus was born the “Trophy Grill” - the first one to represent the victory and allow the celebratory barbecue to happen around it.

Tramontina’s biggest obstacle was infiltrating the football territory and creating a connection with football fans during the last straw of the championship, when games were almost over, people were used to the sponsors and a team was set to win. What the brand learned after talking to Atlético’s fans and through social listening was that after a 50-year wait and a whole pandemic, they were as eager to celebrate as they were to win. If people wanted a big celebration, then Tramontina’s role should be to maximize the party as much as it could. The brand’s strategy was thought to do just that; first, with a teaser phase, hyping up expectations for the big day; then, by putting The Grill Trophy in the center of the party, lighting up Atlético’s first national win in 50 years.

The rollout of Tramontina’s strategy followed Atlético’s schedule in the championship - the better the team did, the faster the brand had to act in order to give the fans the trophy they deserved in the right timing. There were two steps to making the celebration happen in the best way: teasing the “Trophy Grill” and the Victory Day.

In the first step, the brand grew buzz around its surprise by posting mysterious videos on both owned and Atlético’s social media, making it clear that they were up to something related to the national championship that was ending soon. After the hype, came the revelation: at last, Tramontina’s cup was raised to the thousands of fans that were celebrating on the streets,. Registers of this moment, both organic and promoted by Tramontina, spread across social media like fire as people talked about the new national champions.

The results were big. As big as Atlético Mineiro’s first win in fifty years. Sales of the grill grew +289% during the campaign - a figure that was never seen before for that product.

The subject got more than +409M impressions on social media, creating +80M impacts and +56M engagements. But more than that, the Cup of the Cups was able to create a name for itself within Brazilian football culture: after the hype of the championship was gone, people still talked about it and wanted to celebrate their own football victories using one of them, and so Tramontina became part of other championships, professional and amateur. By the end of the football season, Tramontina turned a grill into the newest icon in Brazil’s football history and created a new staple trophy for any championship.

The football ad space is one of the most expensive in the world, and this reality is not different in Brazil. The figures for sponsoring a championship, team and even individual players can go up to millions of dollars. Tramontina didn’t have millions of dollars to promote its grills. In fact, Its budget for the campaign was U$100K, a small fraction of the values most teams asked. For the national championship, prices for sponsoring Palmeiras and Flamengo, two of the country’s biggest teams and who also could’ve won the cup, rounded at about U$15MM and U$7MM, respectively.

In order to bring the “The Trophy Grill” to the world, Tramontina needed to convince Atlético Mineiro of the value it would bring to the team's celebration and work with a stunt mentality, cutting costs and focusing on what was essential to make the party happen.