NFL Heads to South America in Colourful Promo
Celebrating the first-ever NFL game in South America, the league launched a visually and sonically stunning campaign promoting the matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers in Brazil. The campaign was directed by Gabriel Novis, a native of Brazil who is represented for commercial work in the US by LOS FILMS, the commercial production division of LA based creative studio LOS YORK.
The game in Brazil kicks off the NFL’s 2024 slate of international games, taking place in the heart of soccer country, São Paulo, the fourth-largest city in the world with a population of 11.45 million people, and the home of Pele, the greatest soccer legend in the world. Brazil is now fast becoming a large international community for American football outside the US with more than 36 million fans, and its own league, the BFA, which includes 72 teams ranging from the Amazon to the country's deep south, bordering Uruguay.
“I can’t think of anything more American than American football,” said Gabriel. “It was really important for this campaign to connect that world with the culture of soccer. We wanted to make the spot true to American football but at the same time capture the essence of Brazil’s national sport. We created a spot that looks like soccer, using classic techniques from soccer advertising and soccer game coverage, but then we flipped it to show Brazilians playing American football, including the Valkyrias, an all-woman team from the Amazon. My personal goal was to bring a new and fresh vision, making a connection between the game and the way Brazilians live and celebrate and dance. We love to dance in Brazil, so we showed Brazilians dancing the passinho, a dance style created in the 2000s by kids in Rio de Janeiro's favelas, and match-cut that with the dance NFL players do when they score touchdowns.”
“Our new Cada Vez Mais Nosso spot marks a new chapter for the NFL in Brazil with the first-ever game in the country being played week 1 of the season," explains NFL executive producer Gerardo Chapa. "We wanted to commemorate this historic moment by showcasing the growth of the game of football across the entire country - we filmed real football players and fans across São Paulo, Rio, Recife and Manaus, showing that there are Brazilians of all ages, races and genders falling in love with the game of football. This spot is an homage to those fans, players and teams moving the sport forward. There was no better director to bring this story to life than Gabriel – his rich aesthetic style and keen eye for the uniqueness of the emerging culture around American football in Brazilian is what makes this film resonate with our fans”, explains NFL executive producer Gerardo Chapa.
The campaign also contains an unreleased song by global artist The Weeknd. “The new song by the Weeknd, American football and Brazil, they all work!" said Gabriel. "The beat feels like Brazil, it’s energetic, it feels soccer-ish. The music plays a huge role in this campaign.”
