The most significant brand activation in Portugal transformed Lisbon's city centre into a farm.
The Mega Pic-Nic project for Continente brought the countryside to the city, positioning the brand as a leader in supporting Portuguese production. The event, featuring integrated activations and a strong cultural identity, attracted over 2 million visitors across six editions, making it a significant and impactful experience.
The challenge was to position the Continente brand as a leader in supporting national production and, therefore, the Portuguese economy.
It was essential to make national production, from earth to plate, tangible for the Portuguese people - especially for the youngest. To do that, we had to create an authentic brand experience. It was therefore urgent to bring the countryside to the city.
A paradigm shift was mandatory: no matter how good your advertising is, you have to take a multidisciplinary approach if you want to impact the market. And if you want that impact to be significant, you must be bold in format and purpose. In this case, the response to the sovereign debt crisis in Portugal and a call for the best in national production challenged all stakeholders in the food industry to come together to valorise national production. Farmers, chefs, confederations, the government, and the media promoted the most significant agricultural exhibition ever in Portugal.
Combining strategic insights and creativity, we created an integrated communication format that reached millions of consumers with food-loving as its essence. If we were told a priori that a supermarket brand could promote an initiative of this scale and with this success, few would believe it. It was only possible with the awareness that food became fun content and with the experience of adding entertainment content, such as Tony Carreira's performance, so that the event became a live and broadcast experience, guaranteeing - in addition to visitors - whole hours of transmission on RTP and news coverage.
We developed the concept from scratch, anchored in bringing the countryside to the city (hundreds of animals and thousands of plants), promoting the typical flavours of each region, and involving the public in 360º activations - from digital to the store and workshops in the field - creating the biggest picnic ever in Portugal. We adapted and energised this concept with each edition in accordance with the brand's strategic objectives. Thus, from the primary idea (Food+Entertainment), evolutions were born, such as the incorporation of support for National Production (since 2011) or the National Football Team (2010 / 2012 / 2014), always with a Tony Carreira show to delight the fans.
Edition by edition, we made the Mega Pic-Nic strategic concept evolve and gain greater relevance and scale, defining the respective implications in areas such as communication and TV content or defining the event content, working together with other project partners in the respective implementation.
The project's identity should be entirely inclusive, encompassing all age groups and capable of conveying this sense of Portuguese identity with a pop touch. To move away from traditional codes and make the concept more attractive for families, we aimed for a visual boost, bringing the rural environment to the city in a more captivating way - selecting the Rooster of Barcelos as the main icon of the event as it is a symbol of Portuguese culture.
What is the importance of this event? It was proprietary. A supermarket dared to design and implement a format from scratch, with exceptional public impact, in the capital's prime area, entirely against the current norm of festival and events sponsorships and wholly based on the brand’s core. Ubea named it the best public event in Europe, and it still holds the title of the largest brand activation in Portugal.
