In March 2021, wildfires were devastating the forests of Patagonia, Argentina, home of Patagonia Brewery. In Argentina, as in many other countries, there is a lack of investment and infrastructure to address the environmental crisis. The inaction of the government on these matters is never exposed, as they happen far from the country capital and the public management has media allies that tend to set an agenda that shield politicians. In this critical scenario, Patagonia brewery needed to raise awareness about the environmental crisis that was damaging the native forest and affecting the lives of local communities, provide people with useful information and, above all, pressure the government to take action.

Resources were struggling to fight the fires and the media wasn’t covering it. We wanted to create awareness to mobilize people and the government to take action, while gathering donations and informing about what was happening in real time.

We were facing a huge problem that was massively being ignored by society and authorities. The fires were out of control. So we thought, what is actually under our control, in this entire situation? We decided to start raising awareness about the problem, knowing that this would catalyze other actions (actions over which we didn’t have direct control). So as the media still wasn’t talking about the fires, we redirected our efforts in setting the agenda, giving the issue the highest possible exposure, buying sponsored segments on radio and TV shows, making every communicator speak out and spreading awareness.

The media wasn’t talking about it, so we bought sponsored segments on every show to get them to talk about the wildfires in every time slot. The campaign was launched on March, 11th, 2021, and lasted 2 weeks, the time it took for the media to talk about and the government to take action. We’ve used national TV shows, radio programs, digital and social media, as well as influencers to place our message. We’ve also transformed brand’s social media into channels to share useful, real-time, life-saving information. It was the biggest media campaign for Patagonia and it wasn’t to talk about beer.

The fires went from 0 to 50 TV rating points. Added to digital banners and social media, and radio, the message managed to reach 28,000,000 people and make them aware of the crisis. The campaign generated 93% positive sentiment for the brand. But more importantly, as the media started talking, we got the government moving, saving precious acreage and lives.