Ad Of The Week this week comes from Brazil, and it’s another commercial released in the build-up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Telecoms brand Vivo have partnered with rising skateboard star Rayssa Leal in an ad showing snapshots from her life story, and mixing her own narration with AI-generated visuals.
The ad, from agency VML, invites you to “imagine the scene”, with rapid animation of the AI-generated pictures giving the commercial a unique, dreamlike look as Leal tells us about her dreams, her rise, and her hope for glory in Paris. The “fairy tale” visuals fit perfectly with Leal’s own nickname, the “Little Fairy” – one she earned at the age of 7 when she rose to public prominence thanks to a viral video of her extraordinary skills. Her voiceover refers to it too – “Fairy tales aren’t for making little girls sleep”, she says at the end of the ad, “They’re for making them dream”
In our recent report on Olympic ad effectiveness, The Gold Standard, we highlighted the stories of individual athletes as one of the most effective tactics brands can use in Olympic commercials. People around the world watch the Olympics to see the greatest individual athletes in the ultimate sporting competition. So they’re primed to enjoy a story of such an athlete, full of determination and following dreams. It’s one of the tactics brands use again and again.
Of course it’s important to get the right star athlete in your commercial too. Rayssa Neal is a great pick – she’s young, her sport is highly visual but also relatable for millions of viewers, and having won silver at Tokyo 2020 she is an excellent prospect for a Brazilian medal at this games. Both Vivo and Leal are keen to emphasise the female empowerment angle to her story – her voiceover begins with her at age 7, looking to achieve in a sport surrounded by boys. The brand in turn says it wants the ad to begin a partnership which can support gender equality in Brazil.
For our audience sample, the ad hit exactly the right emotional notes, scoring high on “Proud”, “Pleased For Others” and “Awe-Inspired” – just the sort of responses you want from a sporting ad. Vivo’s ad scored 4.2-Stars on our Test Your Ad platform, predicting strong potential for long-term growth and well above the country average of 2.7-Stars. It also got a good score on Brand Fluency. This can be a tricky metric for ads focused on a sporting star, as most athletes have multiple sponsorship deals and may appear in different ads for different brands. But this was not a problem for Vivo.
The ad ends with a reminder that Vivo is an official sponsor of the 2024 Olympic Games. As every marketer knows, Olympic level sponsorship is among the biggest possible investments for brand marketing. It’s vital that the ads brands put out work to justify that level of spend. With this visually distinctive Rayssa Leal commercial, Vivo have passed that test.
"This result underscores the profound impact of stirring emotions—a guaranteed route to captivate a myriad of audiences. It's about tapping into the very essence of human emotion, fostering an immediate surge of empathy towards the brand."
Sleyman Khodor
Chief Creative Officer, VML Brazil
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