Is awareness the most important characteristic in a marketing campaign?

Translation:

Everyone has a relaxed side, uninhibited, astray. Everyone has a “Devassa” side. What's yours?

A toast to this relaxed side, unattached, uninhibited. That ask for a blonde, very cold, very hot Devassa. After all, everyone has a Devassa side.

This blog will start with a polemic marketing campaign from the Schincariol Group.

Background:

Beer Market: The Schincariol Group is the second largest beer company in Brazil. Founded in 1939, owner of several brands in the beverage industry and a significant 11,6% share in the beer market, Schincariol Group is a well-known company in Brazil.

The group, however, is constantly overshadowed by the dominant player in the market and its main competitor, multinational group AMBEV, which holds incredible 70% share and the most popular brands in the beer market.

Schincariol’s marketing goals have long been to increase its awareness and grab a hold to bigger stake in the beer market. The group focus was the country’s richest region, the southeast, where it was known to have an unfavorable image and opportunities for growth.

Devassa: Is a popular craft beer and draught original from the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s cultural center. Devassa is broadly recognized as being a high quality beer, with small scale, “handmade” production. Devassa, in Brazilian Portuguese, means profligate, ordinary girl, slut or whore. However, in the context, Devassa is linked to a sensual woman that makes boys go crazy. This sensual approach is highly usual in Brazil, where most beer advertisements are based on semi-naked woman drinking beer in the sexiest way possible.

The acquisition of the brand Devassa, fit perfectly in Schincariol’s ambitions to position itself in the premium beer sector, with the challenge that it would now have to be produced in a much larger scale.

Devassa Marketing Campaign:

Every year during carnival, the most popular holiday in Brazil, Schincariol Group chooses a famous women for advertisement and to pose as the “Devassa Girl”. Last year, the chosen “Devassa girl” was Paris Hilton, who perfectly represents a Devassa type of girl, being sexy, always partying and calling attention.

For everyone’s surprise, this year the chosen “Devassa Girl” of the carnival was the young Brazilian singer Sandy. Sandy is famous in Brazil, having started her carrier at the age of six. Kids have always been her main audience. Until today, after a 22 year carrier, she has preserved her righteous image as the romantic who seldom goes out, is politically correct, a virgin until marriage. In a nutshell, the most non Devassa type of girl!

The phrase associated with the advertisement was “Everyone has its Devassa side”. But believe me, then we are talking about Sandy, it is really unconvincing. The contradictory choice appears to be much more to raise gossips and cause polemic than anything else. Topics were created in twitter to mention and make jokes about Sandy posing as the “Devassa Girl”, and it became the most viewed topic in Brazil during carnival.

Ok, indeed the commercial was successful in terms of creating buzz, spontaneous media and calling everyone’s attention. However, was this the kind of success the Schincariol Group wanted? It is true that it increases the awareness, but what about brand positioning? The image of Devassa as Paris Hilton is associated to partying, drinking, multinational, class A, adults. On the other hand, Sandy is linked to non-partying, non-drinking, exclusively national, non-defined social class, kids.

Summing up, Schincariol had bought the brand Devassa because it was a well accepted premium brand in the Southeast, region where the Schincariol had an image associated with low quality. Doing so, Schincariol spent millions to buy an old brand with a strategic position in the market and now is taking the risk to lose this position.

So, do you believe that this marketing campaign was successful? Is getting audience the most important thing in a campaign?