Aguila is the dominant beer of Colombia, tierra querida and effectively the national beer of Colombia. or many years its dominant sponsorship platform had been based on the national team, with activation by the Chicas Aguila.
But poor performances by the Colombian side, including failure to quality at the FIFA World Cup had badly undermined the activation value of the sponsorship. With a contract renewal imminent, the Aguila team reached out to Redmandarin for help.
With a quick turnaround required, and a major element of the brief capability-building for the team, we flew out to Bogotá the following weekend. Our time was structured to deliver workshops on two consecutive days – the first to provide the fullest context for their commercial objectives and the second for forward planning. Between the two, our role was to assimilate learnings, study the partnership agreement with the Colombian Football Association and structure the second workshop.
Analysis of the contract unearthed some unusual potential. As the principal sponsor of the national team, Aguila had been given pass-through rights for a number of other categories – in effect, it was in a position to offset its costs by securing new sponsors.
This was particularly interesting because there were a number of national flagship brands which would reinforce Aguila’s association as the national drink : Avianca, for example, the national airline; but equally Banco de Colombia.
Beyond the contract, it became clear to us that Aguila had little actual insight into football fans – their focus had been fixed on their sponsorship platform, not the fans.
The second workshop was intense but exciting as there was a real enthusiasm to learn in the team. They were quick to understand the implications of the contract and how their rights could be used to reduce their financial commitment without diluting their branding or association rights. The team also saw how co-sponsors – in this case – could actually support Aguila positioning, even lifting its status as the national beer.
With the help of case studies, the team realised that audience insight, fan insight, was essential for activation. We spent the afternoon exploring with the team the different dimensions of football in Colombia and developing a brief for market research. We were invited to return for a second short visit in a month’s time to debrief the research. From London, we continued to input into the research brief.
For the Aguila team, the research findings were very illuminating – in terms of basic segmentation, understanding the matchday experience, but most critically in terms of understanding popular touchpoints. One of these created enormous opportunity for Aguila. Colombia, like many Latin American countries, had a vast network of urban and rural canchas, informal urban sites where people played five a side. The research showed that five a side was in fact the most popular format of the game for participation.
Furthermore, unlicensed beer sales already took place – with micro-vendors selling beer straight from the icebox. The activation breakthrough, anchored in their national team sponsorship, was to focus on branding and supporting the network of canchas, and reduce focus on the national team matches; a year round asset with branding and ‘pouring’ rights and weekly access to the Colombian footballing population.
