Three South American Campaigns you need to know
Herein a brief journey through the lands of Cortázar, García Márquez, Pelé and Maradona. Don’t worry, it is not about magical realism or soccer, instead, with some text-editing-magical-dribbling we have put together three distinct campaigns, which are not really connected with each other besides the fact they emerge from the same continent: South America.
Join us through its three parts: from the aesthetics of drone filming in Bolivia; passing through a case study of corporate environmental responsibility in Brazil; to feminist political struggles and their use of social media in Argentina. Enjoy the South American potpourri!
1. A View from Above — Bolivia
Nowadays it is relatively easy to showcase the majesty and beauty of any city or landscape from above, as long as you know how to operate properly a drone. Since drone technologies are more accessible and affordable for the consumer, videos have swarmed the Internet with imagery from the sky, revealing new perspectives of diverse locations.
Mastering drone videography techniques and distinguishing your end product from the rest can be challenging. In this regard, a campaign using extreme sports by Djarum, an Indonesian cigarette brand/manufacturer, stands out with its commercial spots shot in remote locations of Bolivia.
Shot at more than 4.900 meters above the sea level, on the top of the Bolivian limestone mountain “La Cumbre”, the Djarum Super — Volcano spot introduces an amazing scenery shot from above, together with crazy takes of dangerous free-style volcano surfing on the mountain’s gritty peak. What’s more, the stunts appear to be performed in between fire and lava; which as a matter of fact were mainly added as visual effects in postproduction.
The advertisement was made by Robert Gordon (Director, USA); Andy Schefter (Executive Producer, USA); Mariana Sandoval and Hidaya Exeni (Production, Bolivia); together with a crew of more than 100 people (90% Bolivian and 10% foreigners); a caravan of 20 vehicles, trucks and minibuses; and 4 non-stop days of intense shooting.
Djarum Super — Volcano is the second ad produced for the brand in Bolivia. In 2017 the same crew shot a commercial for Djarum Super at the Uyuni Salt flats. On that occasion, hover-boards were introduced to a breathtaking landscape where it’s commonly said that the sky touches the earth. Watch the ad: https://bit.ly/2Oj3gV2
As seen in the case of Djarum, a mix of natural scenery and tech has produced an outstanding outcome, let’s see in the next case study what else can be done combining the environment and new technologies…
2. Corporate Environmental Responsibility — Brazil
A recent internet breaking news turned into memes revealed: Blue macaw parrot that inspired the animated film “Rio” is now officially extinct in the wild, as originally reported by CBS News echoing a new study by BirdLife International.
The article states: “While the vast majority of bird extinctions in recent centuries have occurred on isolated islands, five of the eight highlighted by this study occurred in South America — four in Brazil alone — a tragic statement on the impact of deforestation in that part of the world.” It also points to human-caused climate change as one of the variables pushing animals to an “adapt or die situation”.
The current scientific consensus around climate change is evident. The Fifth Assessment Report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declares:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia (…) Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”
Given the unprecedented situation, a heavy load of the responsibility for mitigating the effects of climate change falls on large corporations. Denying the problem might have its advantages in the short-term, but will bring colossal costs in the long run. Many companies have understood it and integrated eco-friendly solutions to their business models. We take Faber-Castell in Brazil as an example.
In 2016, Faber-Castell launched the “Floresta Sem Fim” app — Portuguese for “Never Ending Forest” — to promote its eco-pencils made from 100% reforested wood. The app was part of its seasonal campaign coinciding with the start of the school term in Brazil.
Using Augmented Reality (AR), the app encouraged children to point their phone cameras to the eco-pencils in order to transform them — on their screens — into animated animals graphics. “Inside of every eco-pencil an animal you help to preserve” proposes the app, as it can recognize the color of each pencil, and each color pencil in the case matches one specific animal.
Thought as a game, the app present features such as unlocking, collecting, playing and customizing the animals, getting information about each one, or taking pictures next to them, as AR allows to see yourself next to the animal on the screen.
The message introduced to Brazilian children was that the eco-pencils come from the same forest where the animals live. Inducing to an awareness and care of the environment, as the preservation of trees saves animals’ lives, and the same is done through the reforested wood eco-pencils of Faber-Castell.
The campaign obtained 600.000 downloads in 90 days, 76 million impressions, 18 million views, 4.5 million engagements, and more than 1200 minutes of tutorials generated by the children themselves.
The question to ask subsequently could be: how many of all the Faber-Castell pencils are really produced from eco-friendly materials? but the answer could dilute if we see the positive outcome of a campaign that introduced to children such a paramount topic, as it is the environment, through the gamification of education.
In the battle against climate change, big ideas and new technologies to propagate them matter, let’s take a look at another meaningful battlefield of ideas taking place in South America…
3. Women’s liberation hashtags — Argentina
In South America, it is very common to find the use of female body imagery to promote consumer products. Alcohol drinks, furniture, and even car tires are promoted in ads that showcase the product next to an almost naked woman. In many cases the connection between the model and the product is quite oblique, however, it is continually used under the notion that it grabs the male consumer’s attention.
Producers of such campaigns often argue these are just artistic photos, but from the opposite side, feminists and gender-based collectives rant about the reification of women’s body in advertisement.
In this context, the last years have seen an outburst of feminist demonstrations in the continent. The Argentinian grassroots feminist movement “Ni Una Menos” — Spanish for “Not one [woman] less” — arose strongly from the need to say “enough of femicides”.
The spark that ignites the movement: 14-year-old Chiara Páez was found murdered on May 2015, buried beneath her boyfriend’s house, beaten to death, and with signs of being few months pregnant. The crime added up to the notion that a woman is killed every 30 hours because of gender violence in Argentina — a calculation made by NGO’s in 2015 through the compilation of media reports as official statistics are lacking.
The call for “Ni Una Menos” started with a group of journalists, activists and artists, but it grew exponentially among large sectors of the Argentinean population which took the campaign as their own, not only in the streets but also online. One of the main tools used to spread their message was social media: Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.
On June 3rd of 2015, with the hashtag/slogan #NiUnaMenos, the movement convened massive protests in 80 Argentinian cities, further spreading the sentiment virally to other countries of Latin America which also held demonstrations, namely Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Perú, México, among many others.
Since then, the movement has brought about several protests in the country. During the rallies of 2016 and 2017 they added #VivasNosQueremos — Spanish for “We want us alive” — . And in 2018, the demonstrations were marked by the use of green bandannas, the campaign’s color demanding for a Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy. This year the claim reverberated: “Sex education to decide. Contraceptives to avoid abortion. Legal abortion to avoid death.” On June 4th, the #AbortoLegalYa — Spanish for “Legal Abortion Now” — was the hashtag behind tens of thousands of women in the streets.
The use of social media and viral quality of the movement is unquestionable, although, not a distinct characteristic if compared with other massive movements such as the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square or the Occupy movement in New York. Nonetheless, one aspect stands out from the #Niunamenos movement: the persistent and large amount of User Generated Content (UGC) produced during the past 4 years. Sufficient proof would be typing one of their hashtags in any social media platform to find an endless amount of pictures, graphics, posts, songs, animations and videos created and posted by women all over the continent.
The question might arise: why is that important? In fact, different from other movements which have had their peak at the execution of their protests, only to later wrestle within themselves to achieve a set of coherent and defined demands; the Ni Una Menos movement has successfully installed a defined set of topics into the (online) public conversation, and which shows no signs of fading away. Ultimately because the conversation relates to vital and basic issues for women: the control over their own bodies and their own physical safety and survival.
