How music megastar Anitta equalised eSport in Brazil
Everyone loves mobile gaming. Or at least that’s what the demographic data says, with genders of players almost equally balanced. However, these relatively healthy stats fall apart when it hits pro-level: only 5% of eSport competitors are women. The disparity was tackled by Free Fire, Brazil’s favourite mobile game, with the help, via AKQA São Paulo, of Anitta – perhaps the South American country’s biggest popstar.
Anitta was transformed into an avatar for the game – a playable character whose stats were set notably higher than male characters. Working with the team to design a new skin and costume, Anitta also released a new song, Tropa, to promote the initiative. The accompanying music video (current views: 14m) shows her gathering a squad of women characters to fight in the game, as well as cameos from streamers. In the wake of the campaign, the proportion of professional female eSport squads in Brazil rose from 2% to 45%.
“It's crucial to deeply understand your audience, to align your creative strategies and ideas with their expectations. Before our campaign, we noticed that Anitta was streaming Free Fire matches on her social media, so she already had this connection with the brand.”
The project won AKQA São Paulo a Graphite Pencil for Use of Avatars in the Gaming & Virtual Worlds category. Speaking to D&AD for the Behind the Work Series, Art Director Luisa Gabaldi advised any creatives working in the space to choose their creative collaborators carefully: “I think it's crucial to deeply understand your audience, to align your creative strategies and ideas with their expectations. Before our campaign, we noticed that Anitta was streaming Free Fire matches on her social media, so she already had this connection with the brand.”
There were other aspects that made Anitta a vital collaborator for the project, with Art Director Marcos Lee pointing out that Anitta is herself an avatar for the progressive message of the campaign. “She came from a favela, and the game has this connection to favela people because it runs on almost any device – you don't need the best smartphone. And when we looked into the campaign, we saw that it wasn’t only women playing with the Anitta character and avatar, but also many people from the LGBTA+ community as well as many non-binary people. So when you bring together the character of Anitta, and you can play with this avatar and relate to her in different ways, you can see her as something like a projection of yourself.”