TV: Inside Saatchi & Saatchi
Authors: Trevor Jackson
Journal: BMJ (2005)

How do you get people to become drinkers of a new alcoholic beverage? Given the current popular image of young Britons as alcohol fuelled party animals, you might wonder if they need much encouragement. But the manufacturers of the Brazilian drink Sagatiba want their new tipple to have a chic global presence, a must-imbibe for all the bright young things of the coolest bars in London, Amsterdam, Rome, and Paris. And they have £20m to spend on their European campaign to persuade more and more people to drink more and more of the stuff.

Sagatiba the company wants Sagatiba the spirit (38% proof) to become as big as Bacardi. At present the drink—an “upmarket” type of cachaca, which is a beverage distilled from sugar cane and normally drunk on street corners in Brazil—is almost unheard of outside its country of origin. Brazil exports only 1% of its cachaca while Russia exports 50% of its vodka. Enter advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Surely the name that sold Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government to UK voters can sell anything? Surely Saatchi & Saatchi (the front steps of whose London headquarters bear the motto “Nothing is impossible”) can get the world drinking Sagatiba?​Sagatiba?




Figure 1



Coming soon to a smart bar near you




The Brazilians believe that the Sagatiba campaign should emphasise the “purity” of their product and that it should bring Brazil to London (this is “a drink for hot, hot people”), but they are keen to avoid the cliches—so “no fruit on the head” or “happy Latin people dancing away.” Saatchi & Saatchi's first effort—built around the slogan “Pure, so you don't have to be”—fails to impress the clients. “We want great, not good,” they say.

In the end, the Saatchi & Saatchi creative team find a model who looks like Brazil's most famous icon, the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro), and decide to put him in scenes “that capture the real spirit of Brazil,” photographing him, his arms outstretched, in a bar, a swimming pool, and a nightclub, and on the back seat of a taxi. “Pure spirit of Brazil,” says the slogan. Pure genius, say the Brazilians.

Not all goes exactly to plan, however. The exorbitantly expensive Hollywood photographer, engaged to make the model exude the requisite degree of heroism, never makes it to the shoot in Sao Paulo because of a visa hitch. But after tense scenes involving executives in helicopters, mobile phones attached permanently to the sides of their head, the project goes ahead with a replacement photographer. The advertisements are now set to appear in glossy style magazines across the globe.

This wasn't the kind of programme to examine the morality of adding another strong alcoholic drink to the bar menus of the world (as one of the team said, “the whole point is to get people into a bar to drink Sagatiba”). But it offered a fascinating insight into how much time, money, energy, and a kind of creepy corporate enthusiasm (these are people whose conversation is peppered with phrases such as “brand values,” “brand ownership,” and even “brand beauty”) goes into making people want something that they do not need. It showed exactly what public health professionals are up against.