The archive · Marketing & Growth · Strategic decision · 2021–2022
Bancolombia maps 600+ farming families onto Waze so city buyers can find them
Colombia's largest bank builds Heart Markets, a farm-to-city platform: 600+ families listed in Waze and offered banking services and financial training.
Bancolombia
What it had to solve
In Colombia, farmers grow essentially all of the country's fruit and vegetables, yet their net profit from sales is only about 10%; distance and intermediaries keep small producers at the bottom of the chain that feeds city markets. Bancolombia, the nation's largest bank, set out to shorten that chain.
How it works
In Colombia, farmers produce essentially all of the country's fruit and vegetables, yet their net profit from sales is only about 10%. Distance, middlemen and living outside the banking system kept small producers at the bottom of the chain that feeds city markets.
Bancolombia, the nation's largest bank, decided the fix was structure rather than charity. It created Heart Markets (Mercados de Corazón), a platform connecting farmers with buyers in cities, and put more than 600 farming families on the map — their stalls were listed as destinations in the Waze navigation app, so city drivers and buyers could find them on a route they already knew.
The bank wrapped the marketplace in its own core service: every participating family was offered bank accounts and financial training so they could receive payments electronically and manage their earnings. Launched in mid-2021, the platform rolled out route by route, and D&AD recognised the work in its 2022 Annual.
Why it lands
- The creative leap was using a navigation app as a marketplace: Waze already carried city buyers, so listing farmers' stalls turned everyday driving into farm-to-table discovery.
- Bancolombia solved the payment and trust problem with its own product — accounts and financial training — so the platform did not stop at visibility.
- Attacking the 10% margin went to the root cause instead of the symptom, giving the bank's brand a genuine economic stake in rural prosperity.
- As the country's largest bank, Bancolombia could build the two-sided market that no single farmer or small buyer could create alone.
What it did
More than 600 farming families gained a direct route to city buyers plus the banking services and money-management training to keep their proceeds — a shift from selling through intermediaries to selling on a map their buyers already used. D&AD recognised the work in its 2022 Annual.
What you can take
An incumbent with distribution can fix the market it profits from: map the excluded sellers onto tools their buyers already use, then wrap them in services that keep the money with them.
Since then
Bancolombia kept expanding Heart Markets through 2021, adding routes such as one through the coffee axis where producers joined with Waze-listed stalls plus bank accounts and training. D&AD recognised the platform in its 2022 Annual, and the marketplace remained the bank's way of connecting small farming families directly with city buyers rather than leaving them to intermediaries.
Sources
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