Gabriel Sotero of WPP’s Wunderman Thompson in Brazil explains how a diverse agency team enabled Coca-Cola to talk about the brand’s Real Magic campaign while establishing a closer relationship with Brazilian Black audiences
How better for a brand to build closer ties with the Black community than to work with an agency team – on the brand’s campaign – that is inclusive?
This is what happened when Wunderman Thompson in Brazil worked with Coca-Cola on the Love Bottle campaign for the Brazilian market.
“Brazil is a country with more Black people than any country outside the African continent,” says Sotero. “In fact, 54% of our population is Black.”
He continues: “Around 70% of the team that worked on this project was Black people. It was very important to demonstrate not only the diversity in our communications, but also in our teams (and in the client team). We have very clear objectives around this at Wunderman Thompson in Brazil. In this campaign, you can see the goals of the agency, the goals of the campaign and those of the client coming together.”
For Coca-Cola, it was a priority that the brand truly connected with the local community, and for the community to see that it was truly represented in the communications material.
“Coca-Cola is one of the most popular products in the world, not only because it is a loved product, but also because it is a highly accessible product. Anyone from any social class and from each region in Brazil can buy Coca-Cola. So, for the brand, it’s important to connect with every single person,” says Sotero.
Campaign assets centred on ‘love’
The campaign itself drew heavily on the love between Black people. It drew also on the iconic Coca-Cola glass bottle. Bringing the two together, Wunderman Thompson created Love Bottle kits that featured illustrations of Black artists on fabric representing different kinds of Black love.
The kits were sent to influential creators to celebrate Black love. The Love Bottles were also featured at the biggest festival of Black culture in the world – AfroPunk – which was taking place in Brazil for the first time. The idea of the campaign was to spread love and the festival was the perfect vehicle for this.
“We decided to do this through beautiful design,” says Sotero. “We invited Black artists to tell beautiful love stories in their illustrations. And we sent these out to the public and influencers in the Black community. The idea went viral because people loved the content.”
Then something interesting happened. “Some people used this fabric as an accessory at the festival,” says Sotero, pointing to the way in which the best ideas take on a life of their own. The fabric representations of love became a celebration of Black culture throughout the festival.
A benchmark for a way of working
“It is so important to have a diverse team to generate diverse points of view. It is not just about inclusion and because it’s the right thing to do; diversity is good for business too. We try to build teams for each project that enable diverse ways of thinking to achieve richer ideas and to enable us to question ourselves,” says Sotero.
“I believe that the world is becoming a better place with more diversity, more equality. We are far from where we should be, but we have taken significant steps on this important issue.”
Taken from: https://www.wpp.com/en/wpp-iq/2023/07/when-diversity-goals-align-the-result-is-great-work