One Piece: The Straw Hat Swap

The brief asked for the most talked-about title of the year, and named the risk itself: a well-made campaign that only speaks to people already going to watch. One Piece’s fandom is famous for judging authenticity first, and forgiving nothing else.

Fans had already drawn the line themselves, long before we did. Chico Bento, a straw-hatted Brazilian icon since the 1960s, was already the internet’s running joke for Luffy’s Brazilian double. We just listened, and made the joke real.

We crossed Brazil’s biggest straw hat with the world’s biggest straw hat. A hero film put Chico Bento inside One Piece: stretching with Luffy’s powers, swallowed by Laboon, sailing the Going Merry. Then a full campaign followed: a Wanted poster, a comic strip, a video call between the two characters, an official hat swap, a live Laboon activation in Rio, and OOH nationwide of Luffy stretching across Brazil.

More than 85 million impressions. 1.5 million engagements. Two fanbases that had never met became one crew, and for a while, the whole media in Brazil was talking about straw hats.