The Brazilian diabetes association joined forces with Roche Pharmaceuticals and the government of Rio de Janeiro to carry out an unprecedented action.

Together, they changed the name of the sugar loaf, one of Brazil’s most famous landmarks, to Sugarless Loaf. The goal was to raise awareness of diabetes control and prevention during world diabetes day. Tourists visiting the sugarless loaf that day had a completely new experience.

There were signs with the name sugarless loaf and also a special souvenir store with sugarless loaf products where people could also have their blood tested. Some of them found out they had diabetes, which is an important step for getting appropriate treatment, especially since this is a silent disease. We also placed sugarless loaf posters in hotels throughout the city and engaged taxi drivers, who helped spread the message by telling tourists about the new landmark.

Having one day to get the attention of the public and communicate the perils of this dangerous disease, we changed the name of the most famous national landmark. We took the Sugar out of the Sugar Loaf Mountain and called immediate attention to the major cause of the diabetes disease, the excess of sugar consumption.

We made a nationwide campaign to communicate this fact, we changed traffic signs throughout the city pointing to the new touristic spot, we built a new souvenir shop and we created a huge event on the day to inform people regarding diabetes diagnosis, prevention and treatment.

The major media spontaneously helped to spread the message and thousands of people were impacted by the action.

To call attention to the perils of diabetes disease, we changed the name of the most famous national landmark and we made a nationwide campaign and an on spot event to communicate it.

With this action we’ve got the attention of the nation and got many spontaneous media throughout the country, and several quotations on the web around the world.

Thousands of people were impacted and we brought proper information regarding diabetes diagnosis, prevention and treatment.

On the spot we made more then 900 free blood tests. Unfortunately, several of which were positive. Fortunately this people discovered they had diabetes soon enough to get the proper treatment.