Guaraná Antarctica
How Samba Rock launched Brazil's top selling soda Guaraná Antarctica's first campaign and redefined its brand presence in the US
The back story
Guaraná Antarctica is a typical Brazilian soda, and the top selling soda in that market, ahead of Coca Cola. It’s owned by AMBEV, the largest brewery in Latin America, that is part of the AB-Inbev conglomerate, the world’s largest brewery. However, the brand had very low recognition in the American market, since this flavor is not very common in the US.
In their effort to go global, in 2019 AMBEV hired Samba Rock as their agency of record for the US market. Since they don’t have a marketing department for exports, we have been dealing directly with AMBEV’s exports manager, and Samba Rock has became an extension of their team, and Guaraná Antarctica’s very own marketing department.
Dare to try
The Guaraná berry ir originally found at the Amazon rainforest. So, for Guaraná’s first US campaign, Samba Rock highlighted the origin of this super fruit, focusing on the mystique and power of this berry.
To generate the desire to experiment the taste of Guaraná, we leveraged the call to action “Dare to try.”
In 2019, our campaign targeted 4 geographic regions: Miami, Orlando, Great NYC and Boston. These are areas with large concentration of Brazilian Americans, so the product distribution is stronger. However, we targeted the general American audience, to grow the brand presence and avoid being treated as a niche brand.
The campaign timeline was dictated by events that we identified that were a good fit for the brand in each of these markets. For each event, we ran sampling with brand ambassadors and a personalized tent. For 1 week before and 1 week after each event we ran digital out-of-home campaigns near the event locations in parallel to street team activations and supermarket sampling.
Digital + Social + Influencer Marketing
We planned and delivered a strong digital presence in 2019. We launched the website theoriginalguarana.com, their Amazon storefront, Facebook and Instagram pages. We also ran Google Ads and Facebook Ads campaigns to generate brand awareness. In parallel we worked with small and medium influencers to extend our reach in the main geographic areas of the campaign.
Guaraná Experience App
We created an iOS/Android Augmented Reality app that takes users to a virtual 3D version of the Amazon Rainforest – and a lucky winner will travel to Brazil for free! We partnered with KAYAK, that offered the $5,000 big prize and helped us get the word out about this sweepstakes. Being aligned with such a respected brand added credibility to Guaraná Antarctica in the US. To get people to download our app, we leveraged Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Influencer Marketing, Kayak Ads (targeting users who searched for trips to Brazil) and POS Ads. This app was a finalist at the AWE2020, one of the most important AR/VR and innovation awards in the US.
Were you Guara-naughty or Guara-nice this year?
During the Holiday Season of 2020 we created a very unusual sweepstakes campaign. Due to the pandemic, we had a little more difficulty to deliver on promotional mechanics such as delivering prizes, reaching out to winners, etc. Also, we had a very short schedule between approval of the concept and go live, leaving a short promotional period and little time to deliver prizes. So we did what we do best: came out with an out-of-the-box solution.
Since Guaraná’s main objective in 2020 was to strengthen their presence on Amazon.com, and position the soda on the top of the most shopped and most desired lists, we decided to leverage Amazon.com’s own wishlist functionality in our favor.
The promotion asked fans to add Guaraná to a new wishlist, add their own address to it and share that list on their Facebook pages, using either #guaranaughty or #guaranice. At the end of the promotion, we searched for these 2 hashtags, and started fulfilling the participants wishlists, by sending the product to their addresses on file.
With this mechanics, we were able to bring Guaraná up to the #6 position on the top selling sodas, and #2 position on the most wished for sodas in the US!
A new brand position and tone of voice
Guaraná Antarctica is a brand with sense of humor in Brazil. However, we were feeling that our brand position for the US market since 2019 was too serious. It worked to introduce the brand in the new market, since we needed to explain to the American audience what is Guaraná, but it was time to add some personality and quirkiness to the brand, to stand out in the middle of a very crowded market. So, in 2021 we introduced a new positioning, that included changing the tone of voice to a more tongue in cheek, witty and fun tone, as well as presenting content that is more in line with the age of the internet memes and Tik Tok videos. We also updated the color palette and the visual style to make the brand pop in feeds everywhere. This process actually started with the Secret Santa campaign and is growing into something very unique in the US soda market.
Meet Chloe
Summer 2021: Guaraná Antarctica partners with Chloe Clem, the world famous meme from 8 years ago, to showcase how she is an actual fan of the soda, and connecting with a younger audience in a very authentic way.
Guaraná Antarctica becomes the official partner of the NYCFC
Guaraná Antarctica has been connected to the soccer passion for more than a decade, being the official sponsor of the Brazilian National team. So it made sense to bring this part of its DNA to the US, partnering with one of the best teams in the MLS, and growing our reach and engagement in one of the most populous and most iconic regions of the country.
The partnership included, apart from the usage rights of the team and players, advertising inside of the stadium, sampling events, events welcoming Brazilian players to the NYCFC roster, integrated social media content, exclusive promotions and much more.