Top 10 Beverage Brands in Brazil

The rapid expansion of digital media consumption creates promising conditions for brand investment. Brazil boasts the fifth-largest online audience in the world, and drives half of digital advertising spend in Latin America despite representing only a third of the population. Yet L2’s Digital IQ Index®: Beverages reveals that few Beverage brands take advantage of these opportunities.

As in other middle-income countries, most brands underinvest in digital while a handful excel. However, a remarkable difference is that in Brazil, local brands are the ones excelling.

1. Skol
   Digital IQ: 162

The beer brand defied category heavyweights like Coca-Cola and Red Bull with heavy investment in online video, garnering the highest view count and highest subscriber share of any local brand channel on YouTube.
Skol also invests significantly in original, localized content such as the GPS Skol app, which locates the nearest Skol at the best price. As a result of its content investments, Skol boasts the most popular brand site in the Index as well as impressive followings on Twitter and Instagram.

1. Coca-Cola
   Digital IQ: 158

Coca-Cola’s massive social following – the brand generates the highest share of voice in the Index on Facebook and the largest following on Twitter – help the company achieve return on costly promotions such as the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics sponsorship. The brand’s #issoéouro (this is gold) campaign targets young audience with an emphasis on user-generated content and hashtags. Six months before the event, the campaign has already generated over 10,000 Instagram mentions and scores of new followers.

1. Red Bull
   Digital IQ: 143

One of the most localized international brands in Brazil, the energy drink maker boasts a popular site including extensive video content, articles on extreme sports, and a brand store selling merchandise. Like Coca-Cola, Red Bull also uses sponsorship of local sporting events to achieve a social boost. The brand has even released a series of localized mobile games increasingly popular on Android.

1. Guaraná Antarctica
   Digital IQ: 133

This local brand has proven its ability to compete on social with international players. Its innovative #SeJogaNoEscuro [Play in the Dark] campaign promotes a new flavor and includes a user-generated product locator, and social accounts attract a high follower count – although more frequent posts would help the brand take advantage of those fans.

1. Pepsi
   Digital IQ: 126

By combining sub-brands Pepsi Twist and Pepsi Zero on a single site, Pepsi boasts stronger web authority than most of its regional competitors. The soda maker also staged Brazil’s only transactional loyalty program of the year with Pode Ser Agora (It Could Be Now), a promotional event where customers entered the barcodes from their drinks on the brand’s site to earn points towards prizes. Local celebrities helped promote the campaign on the site and social media, helping the six YouTube videos garner 2.4 million views.

1. Budweiser
   Digital IQ: 119

Budweiser stands out for its brand store on Empório
da Cerveja, a proprietory beer retailer in Brazil selling exclusively Anheuser-Busch InBev products. The brand also uses the site to promote its NFL co-sponsorship, taking advantage of the increasing popularity of American football with a dedicated page on Emporiodecarveja.com linking to both Budweiser.com.br and NFL.com. In the lead-up to the 2016 Super Bowl, Budweiser and Empório da Cerveja partnered to host the #EmporioBudSuperBowl contest, presenting a Super Bowl ticket 
to a customer who posted a photo with that hashtag.

1. Gatorade
   Digital IQ: 114

Despite a buggy social media feed, the sports drink brand outperforms in content, producing extensive video and sports material catering to local interests. It is also the category leader on retailer sites, with the highest visibility and number of SKUs, and boasts the most viewed local YouTube channel in the category.

1. Heineken
   Digital IQ: 110

While Heineken’s exceptional video content attracts site traffic, its overzealous age gate permanently locks out users who mistakenly type the wrong birthday. However, the brand demonstrates digital prowess elsewhere, with an innovative campaign awarding door locks that only open for guests with Heineken bottles.

1. Do Bem
   Digital IQ: 105

The local tea brand has established itself as a leader in mobile, with high mobile visibility and site features including animations and videos on product pages. Do Bem also secures the third-highest engagement on Instagram with two posts per day on average.

1. Brahma
   Digital IQ: 97

Like many local brands, beer maker Brahma creates popular content and promotes it across platforms, such as the “Papo de Bar” [Bar Talk] video series on YouTube. Brahma posted more videos on Facebook than any other brand in the Index, an effort that seems to pay off. Brahma’s 107 video posts during the study period were viewed nearly 16 million times, dwarfing its brand YouTube account. Those posts included product videos with links to the site, frequent brand ambassador appearances, and promotions for the Brahma Valley Festival.