Mercado Livre has genuinely embraced sport as a true passion point. Its presence in the sporting world now spans multiple arenas, from football and gaming to Formula 1 and, most recently, tennis. And when I say embraced, I mean it in the most strategic sense of the word: the brand fuses itself with culture in a way that authentically amplifies its share of voice as entertainment, while simultaneously building consistent brand equity.
Who doesn’t remember the Ballboards at football matches, delivering the ball swiftly back to players? Or Call of Discounts? These weren’t mere activations. They were cultural ideas with a strong and unmistakable brand signature.
After brand size, creative quality is the single most important factor driving ROI.
In practical terms, with the same budget and the same audience, an advert with a strong concept, clear message, emotionally resonant storytelling, and coherent brand identity can generate significantly more revenue, profit, and memorability than a generic or mediocre execution. Planning, media mix, and investment matter, but their multiplier effects tend to be smaller.
Creativity, in isolation, can drive far greater variation in outcomes. And Mercado Livre’s latest film proves precisely that.
“Special Delivery”: When Sponsorship Becomes Narrative
João Fonseca is the rising star of Brazilian tennis, with the potential to make an impact comparable to the legendary Gustavo Kuerten. The film Special Delivery marks Mercado Livre’s official entry into tennis and makes it clear that this goes far beyond placing a logo on a shirt.
The ad achieved 4.0 Stars in System1’s Test Your Ad Pro, a rare accomplishment, considering that only around 10% of TV commercials across all categories in Brazil reach this level. The Star Rating measures long-term growth potential. In the short term, the Spike score reached 1.13, demonstrating that brand building and performance can and should work simultaneously. And completing the effectiveness triad, Brand Fluency reached an exceptional 99%, meaning virtually everyone recognized it as a Mercado Livre ad.
This is the central point: there is no trade-off between brand building and results. When creativity is strong, both move forward together.
Ronaldo Being Ronaldo: Execution Makes the Difference
Ronaldo, already a well-established brand ambassador, alongside a rising young talent, is a powerful combination. But the real differentiator lies not merely in the casting, but in the execution.
Celebrities can significantly enhance creative effectiveness, provided they are integrated organically and humanly into the concept. In the report Celebrity Effectiveness + Creative Quality (System1, 2023), analysis of thousands of adverts showed that:
Ads featuring celebrities who interact naturally within the narrative generate deeper emotional responses than those that simply bolt on a famous face.
When the celebrity behaves authentically as they are known publicly, rather than as a detached symbol, positive memory encoding and emotional association increase substantially.
In other words, it is not the celebrity alone that drives effectiveness, but how they are woven into the creative, emotional, and cultural narrative.
The trick, which is deceptively simple yet rarely mastered, is allowing the celebrity to be themselves within a story that genuinely matters to the audience.
Emotional Breadth and Memory Building
Maya Angelou once said:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
In communication, this could not be more accurate. Even those who do not follow tennis or who had never heard of João Fonseca were introduced to him in compelling fashion. The ad operates on two powerful emotional engines: Happiness and Surprise.
In the film, the Brazilian flag carries immediate emotional symbolism: legacy, nostalgia, national pride. At the same time, it preserves Ronaldo’s light, playful personality, avoiding any overly solemn or artificial tone. The result is something rare: genuine emotion without the sense of forced advertising.
Data from Test Your Ad Pro shows that these emotions are fundamental to building long-term mental structures. In the report, every comment associated with “Surprise” referenced Ronaldo’s appearance. A significant proportion of “Happiness” comments did the same. One viewer captured it perfectly: “It reminded me how much happiness Ronaldo brought to us Brazilians.”
This kind of response is not incidental. It is emotional memory construction.
The result is a strong long-term effectiveness score of 4.0 Stars, well above the Brazilian average of 2.7, alongside 99% Brand Fluency, proving that the brand is not merely present, but fully integrated and recognized.
Mercado Livre demonstrates strategic maturity by transforming sports investment into proprietary, emotionally powerful entertainment. When creativity and culture move together, ROI stops being an uncertain outcome and becomes a predictable one.
Why this matters now
By aligning itself with a widespread desire for balance, Vivo expands its relevance rather than narrowing it. This is not a retreat from growth logic, it is a more sophisticated expression of it.
If the cultural questioning of hyper-connectivity continues (and all signs suggest it will) Vivo has already secured a legitimate and emotionally resonant position in that conversation.
This is creative effectiveness at its best: not selling louder, but meaning more and, ultimately, growing more.
“These results reinforce a conviction we hold strongly: brand growth is built at the intersection of cultural relevance and emotional memory. By positioning ourselves as ‘proud sponsors of João Fonseca’ and connecting his rise with the collective nostalgia of Ronaldo, we didn’t just sponsor talent, we invested in a narrative of legacy and continuity. The strong long-term score confirms that authentic cultural positioning builds enduring brand equity. At the same time, the solid short-term potential demonstrates that when emotion is anchored in brand recognition, impact compounds across horizons. This isn’t brand versus performance. It’s evidence that brand is performance, when built with cultural legitimacy and emotional precision.”
Iuri Maia
Branding Director, Mercado Livre
"Investing in a promising tennis player like João proves the brand’s convictions, that the best is always yet to come. With the strategy clearly established, it becomes easier to define the brand’s creative role: delivering optimism to Brazilians through the symbolic delivery from a former idol to an idol in the making.”
Tiago Abreu
CCO, GUT
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