A US$ 10 million campaign is being elaborated by advertising agency Young & Rubicam (Y&R) to make Brazilian chicken into a national symbol, like French champagne and Swiss cheese.
"Or like Brazilian coffee was one century ago," compared Alessandro Cardoni, account services director at the agency presided by Roberto Justus.
Y&R recently won the advertising account of the Brazilian Poultry Exporters Association (Abef). The association’s objective is to promote a strong advertising campaign in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Russia – four countries that are great consumers of Brazilian chicken.
The idea is to launch and consolidate brand Brazilian Chicken, a stamp that the 21 companies associated to the Abef are going to start using as a synonym of quality chicken.
"Many people in Brazil do not know that the country is the largest world exporter of chicken. The idea is to show that if we are the largest, we are also the best," stated Cardoni.
The slogan has already been created: Brazilian Chicken, number one in the world. The stamp is being elaborated. Cardoni does not reveal what it will look like, but it will certainly have the image of a chicken and the Brazilian colours, green and yellow.
The campaign will be launched simultaneously in all four countries in September and will last four months. There will be three actions in parallel.
First, there will be product promotion, with sampling, at events for representatives of the local market and journalists. At a second stage, Y&R is going to place brand Brazilian Chicken in specialized magazines and in cuisine programs.
Finally, television ads, billboards and a vast campaign at points of sale will be released. If the actions provide a positive result, Abef should expand the publicity to other countries.
To elaborate the campaign for the Arab countries, Cardoni and his team studied various advertising campaigns in the country. Apart from that, they counted on consultancy and revision by the Y&R office in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).
"We made a point of sending everything for them to analyse beforehand. In the same way as industries are careful to promote halal slaughter to export the product, we were careful not to do anything that would offend or harm cultural and religious principles," stated the advertising executive.
Last year Y&R established a department to take care of foreign campaigns. Apart from the Abef actions, they have created international campaigns for food sector company Perdigão (currently running in Russia), for airline TAM and for the Brazilian bank Bradesco, one of the five largest banks in Brazil.
Exports
Brazil is the largest chicken exporter in the world. In 2005, shipments abroad totalled 2.845 million tons, 15% more than in 2004. In total, revenues were US$ 3.5 billion, 35% more than in the previous year.
The Middle East is the main poultry market in terms of sales volume. In 2005, exports totalled 848,570 tons of meat, generating revenues of US$ 955.2 million.
The main market in terms of revenues is Asia, which purchased no less than US$ 1 billion in Brazilian chicken in 2005. Russia, a country that buys more than the whole of Latin America, generated revenues of US$ 267.2 million.
Despite being far from locations where there is avian flu, Brazil has been suffering with the reduction of global consumption of the product.
Anba – www.anba.com.br
