Schweppes needed to launch its new global position, Character Required. But, if it is a brand that sells a product at nightclubs with men as primary target and started to position itself as a brand that builds character, it couldn’t close its eyes to all the sexual harassment that has always going on in Brazil. Beyond the launch of it, the brand also needed to look and do something to help the context that it lives in, and PR had an important role to help bring awareness and to engage women and men in a very serious and relevant subject.

Without having a strong discussion and engaging consumers and society, this case would never happen. Schweppes, a brand that has nightclub as its main point of sales and men as its primary target, needed to launch its new global positioning ‘Character required’ in Brazil. A belief about appreciate the adult life as the best moment of life and enjoying nightlife with elegance and respect.

While this suits across the globe, in Brazil it was still a challenge: although the abuse discussion is increasing, there is a notion that when a woman talks about it, she is whining.

Schweppes realized that building character isn’t easy and done overnight. We challenged ourselves to clash with our target. Even with a powerful and provocative speech, it was time to show what character really means and what men were doing. PR was essential to launch the new positioning and bring awareness to women harassment.

As building character isn’t easy and to make men see and realize the harassment women face when going out, Schweppes created “Dress for Respect”. A dress made with an ultrasensitive tissue that register every touch received. 3 different women wore the Dress for Respect to a popular nightclub in São Paulo, Brazil. The dress sent to a control unit every information in real-time of the unconsented touches (where they happened, the intensity, duration) they received from men who tried to approach – or simply put their hands on them. With 6 hidden cameras and 2 disguised photographers, we could register what those men said and how they acted. The real-time action became a video, launching its new positioning ‘Character required’. Nothing more needed for this situation than character. There were no way men couldn’t see the harassment. For Schweppes, nothing more important than make them realize that harassment isn’t flirt.

As we had the challenge to bring awareness to sexual harassment in Brazil and had a very low budget to impulse the video, PR was a very important key to do it.

As much as we had our focused on our target, young adults, both women and men, we also wanted to sparkle the conversation to every woman that were harassed and every man that had harassed.

So, our PR strategy was focused on mainstream sources, helping us raise the awareness surrounding the sexual abuse, mainly in nightclubs.

Besides that, our message was powerful and relevant, and we were the first brand to talk about sexual harassment in nightclubs, so we had the chance to reach also spontaneous sources.

We activated all our strength in partnerships to highlight the subject through the look of social responsibility, which undoubtedly would empower the topic.

The Huffington Post, a digital channel that takes place as one of the most important vehicles that highlight and spread discussions regarding minorities and social behavior, posted our video in first hand to their audience.

Oath, one of the largest media groups in Brazil, donate us thousands of video impressions on Yahoo and MSN, segmented to women.

The combination of the right sources with the powerful and relevant message we were raising, was the key to reach more sources over more than 140 countries.

Our biggest result was to realize that the case wasn’t relevant just in Brazil, but also globally. We brought the discussion to more than 140 countries, with more than 1500 media outlet mentions.

We also had more than 2 billion global impressions, with more than US$11MM earned media.

We reach big, respected and diversified internet portals, such as Forbes, AdAge and Vogue, that were not only commenting and praising the campaign, but were helping us to raise the awareness around sexual harassment.

In less than a week, the video registered more than 600.000 views. After Brazil, USA was the country with most mentions about the campaign, followed by Spain and the UK. The most related subject was the difference between flirting and abuse.