THE BRIDGE TO SUCCESS FOR PR IN BRAZIL

Working with a PR agency in Brazil or an agency based in Latin America is a major asset when establishing your business in the country, which holds plenty of challenges for anyone unused to its broad variety of culture, ethnicities, climate and media consumption.

Brazil’s breadth makes it a country with a huge amount of potential, which can enrich your business journey in the country while simultaneously presenting new challenges to overcome.

PR in Brazil is as important as anywhere else. According to a recent Comscore survey, the country leads the entire continent in the consumption of online news – 96% of Brazilian users consume journalism via their devices.

Sherlock Communications’ 2021 report on media consumption in Latin America reveals 160 million people are currently online in Brazil, accounting for 37% of Latin America’s online population (430 million).

Having said that, TV is still considered by Brazilians to be the most trustworthy media format. Nearly 35% of respondents watch television more than once a day in Brazil, which is considered the major consumer of television in Latin America. Brazilians are also the most likely regional group to listen to daily news on the radio, with 46% tuning in on a daily basis.

Brazilians consume a lot of media, but many of them are not being represented as they should. 

To better understand the representation of Brazil’s indigenous people – a population of almost 1 million people – we interviewed Walter Oliveira, an Indigenous Communicator based in the Amazon, as well as many indigenous people. 

Our conversations revealed that most indigenous people typically have access to the internet between 7 to 10:30pm, albeit with a very weak signal. Still, over 30% of them have more than 3 smartphones in their home. 39% of respondents access news online and 26% get their news from social media – Facebook was cited as the most popular platform.  

However, only 3% of the indigenous people we spoke to feel represented in the media. According to Walter Oliveira, “there is so much talk in the media about the Amazon, but it’s rare that we – the people who actually live here – are permitted to speak for ourselves.”

We also talked with Daiene Mendes, resident of Favela do Alemão and director of Favela em Pauta, an online news portal whose content is produced by favela residents. 

Brazil’s favelas are inhabited by around 17 million people, and circulate an average of R$119.8 billion (USD$22.5 billion) per year. Yet these communities are widely ignored by companies, or dismissed as crime-ridden no-go areas. However, notwithstanding certain issues, favelas are busy hubs of local small enterprises.

As Daiene says, “We have a huge issue in Brazil with inequality. What we see in the media is the creation of news stories that cater to one part of society, while completely ignoring huge groups. It’s the rich talking to the rich. A vast proportion of the population is not represented in the national media.” 

This is counterintuitive, since 76% of respondents from favelas watch the news on TV every day, and cite the Internet as their main source of news. 57% spend more than 3-4 hours on social networks every day, with some stating that they spent 8, 10, or even 15 hours or more on social networks. 

Speaking the language of the community

Just like anywhere else in the world, communications campaigns in Brazil should go beyond simply delivering a message in the right place. It’s crucial to communicate in a way which local people will fully understand. 

For example, during the pandemic, Walter worked in a social project named ‘With health and happiness, without Corona’, delivering hygiene kits and information to people living in remote areas. 

He and his team realised that “in order to combat fake news and grab people’s attention, we needed to speak the language of the community – so we created parodies and poems about the pandemic.”

Disability

Nearly ten million Brazilians are deaf or have some level of hearing deficiency. Governmental messaging on Brazilian TV typically includes a Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) interpreter. But most brands in Brazil fail to provide Libras versions of their sites or messaging. 

Good PR agencies in Brazil know how important it is to combine Public Relations with Digital Marketing strategies. Since the country’s population spends a lot of time online, tactics such as technical SEO, social media, content marketing and influencer marketing – 35% of Brazilians trust influencers’ messaging – are very important to pursue. 

Technical SEO

Remember how indigenous people only have access to the internet between the hours of 7-10:30pm? It follows that they don’t have much time to search for information online, so being displayed right at the top of Google’s results is crucial, wouldn’t you agree?

Technical SEO covers a series of tactics which can speed up your site, making it easier to explore and more recognizable to search engines. Google’s bots (or “spiders”) analyse and filter websites based on over 200 different metrics, such as usability, loading speed and information architecture.

Social Media

According to Statista, Brazil’s population of social media users is the fifth largest in the world. 

For this reason, planning a social media strategy is essential to catch the attention of your target audience. Furthermore, social media channels grant access to data analytic tools which monitor how your audience is responding to your content, yielding insights to inform even more accurate campaigns. 

Needless to say, these strategies should take into account the culture and preferences of local people. If not, your content will be ineffective or, even worse, misunderstood. So, perhaps even more than reaching your target audience, your focus should be on arousing their curiosity and interest.

Influencer marketing 

Influencers are the new celebrities, especially in Brazil, where people seek out an intimate relationship with the accounts they follow. Influencers are like friends who can be trusted, and who behave like real people, with all their flaws and mistakes. 

Consequently, an influencer marketing strategy can be very effective here – influencers can tell the story of your brand in a natural and trustworthy way on relevant platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook.

That said, it’s important to determine which influencers your target audience identifies with, and this goes beyond their follower count. Your brand should only approach influencers who seek to establish a lasting relationship with their followers, through truthful and transparent content, and even personal experiences and stories drawn from their own lives.

In this way, when influencers mention your product or service, their followers will trust what they are saying and demonstrate curiosity. Influencers need to know what they are talking about – for example, a beauty influencer won’t succeed in building trust by talking about a product which isn’t a part of their daily regimen. That’s why it pays to work with a team that is specialised in identifying the right influencers for your audience.

Content Marketing

Content marketing plays a role in all other marketing strategies – it’s how people obtain valuable information while your company raises awareness, creates engagement, gets qualified leads and drives conversions. It also goes hand in hand with inbound marketing strategies, which deal with users according to their knowledge and interest in a brand, product, service or company.

There are tons of methods and platforms which can be used to share qualified content, which can educate consumers on non-commercial topics, or help them solve a day-to-day issue. 

Public Relations isn’t just about looking good in the media and online news; it’s also about building a reputation and having the right support when making decisions in your target country.

Public Relations in Brazil encompasses a whole package of services which complement each other, acting in tandem to achieve recognition for your brand.

Press Releases

Press releases are journalistic articles on specific topics which are directly related to your company – such as prizes, events and partnerships. Their circulation makes it easier to present your brand to your Brazilian target audiences.

By being present in Brazilian media, your brand can also gain exposure through a more conventional route, getting through to areas and people which conventional advertising may not be able to reach. These services complement each other to help raise your profile even further among your target audiences.

To achieve these objectives, our PR professionals work to distribute the most appropriate releases in order to obtain coverage on major news channels, providing a greater view of your brand to existing and potential customers alike.

Media Relations

Journalists are busier and busier by the day, and aren’t always readily available to cover events, especially those promoted by relatively unknown brands in Brazil.

A PR agency in Brazil will maintain journalist relationships, allowing your team to focus on planning, while we get in touch with trusted contacts in order to guarantee coverage of your event by local media.

Crisis Issues and Reputation Management

Reacting exclusively to crises instead of building a solid reputation is a mistake which a lot of brands make. After all, building a reputation means considering the health, happiness and function of each of the company’s  stakeholders, inside and out. 

Everything needs to be aligned to avert potential identity crises, or complaints from employees and consumers. We will be by your side in any situation, planning effective measures to solve or, better yet, anticipate and prevent future issues.

Message Development

Your brand needs to communicate clearly, consistently and transparently in order to build loyalty and admiration among your customers. To do this, it’s important to ask whether every campaign shares the same goals as the company itself. 

Stay in constant contact with your target audience. Identifying your target audience is a recurring theme in PR, because it informs any action you take to raise awareness of your brand – if the people aren’t interested, there will be no sales. 

Once you’ve established who your audience is, think about what you’re going to say to them: will it involve the launch of a new product? A new market you’re talking to? An update to your brand’s identity?

Whatever the answer, point out what sets your product apart from the competition, and prove it – facts will always make your  message more trustworthy. People naturally fact-check, no matter where they are and what sources they turn to. 

Our Public Relations teams in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have the contacts, experience and skills to support your business’ journey into  the Brazilian market. Contact us to find out more about our services, and begin enhancing your business’ reputation with the best PR agency in Brazil.

“It’s important that we have communication in communities, by the people and for the people.” 

– Daiene Mendes.