Mibanco's EstibADores turns Lima porters' handcarts into ad space that pays them

Gamarra is Lima's sprawling garment district, moved by estibadores — informal load-porters pushing handcarts. A recent municipal rule capped the weight they could carry to protect their health, which also cut their income. Mibanco, a Peruvian microfinance bank whose clients are exactly these micro-entrepreneurs, wanted to support them without breaking the new rules.

Turn Gamarra's load-porters' handcarts into mobile billboard panels: brands buy the space, and each porter is paid a monthly fee straight into a savings account.

With Circus Grey Lima and OMD Perú, Mibanco launched EstibADores in April 2025 as a pilot with the porters' association ASETRAM: the carts became itinerant ad boards, Mibanco was the first advertiser, and porters got a guaranteed monthly payment into an Mibanco savings account, plus financial-literacy workshops, digital accounts with Yape access and credit assessment. The model is designed to scale to some 20,000 porters across Lima.

The campaign won two Silver Lions at Cannes 2025 — in Outdoor (Corporate Purpose) and Creative B2B — and the cart-ad medium it invented drew interest from other Peruvian brands and agencies, giving porters a second income line their new rule couldn't touch.

Gamarra, Lima's garment district, runs on estibadores: informal porters who push handcarts of fabric and finished clothes through its streets. When municipal authorities capped the loads porters could carry — a health measure — the practical effect was a pay cut for men with no formal contracts or safety net. Mibanco, Peru's pioneering microfinance bank, banks these micro-entrepreneurs and faced the question of how to stand by them without colliding with the new rule.

The answer from Circus Grey Lima and OMD Perú was to change what the cart is. EstibADores (a pun folding AD into estibadores) turns each carretilla into a travelling billboard panel. Mibanco bought the first space; each porter in the pilot — drawn from the ASETRAM porters' association — collects a fixed monthly fee for carrying the ad, paid into an Mibanco savings account. The package wraps the payment in bank plumbing: financial education workshops, account opening, digital payments via Yape, and credit assessment that turns a cash-only worker into someone with a financial record.

The medium worked commercially as well as socially. At Cannes 2025 the campaign took Silver Lions in two tracks — Outdoor (Corporate Purpose) and Creative B2B — and El Comercio reported that other Peruvian brands and agencies began buying into the cart-ad medium. Mibanco frames the ceiling as roughly 20,000 porters across Lima, which would make Gamarra's carts a standing out-of-home network owned by the people who carry it.

The insight is that the porter's problem and the advertiser's problem are the same object: the cart needs revenue and a brand needs reach inside Gamarra's maze of streets where billboards don't go.

Paying into a savings account rather than cash quietly does the bank's actual job — converting informal daily income into a financial identity, which is what financial inclusion means in practice.

The idea respects the new weight-cap rule instead of fighting it, which kept regulators, the porters' association and the brand aligned.

Mibanco being the first advertiser de-risked the pilot and made the brand story inseparable from the medium.

When a rule cuts your customer's income, invent a new one: the bank didn't advertise to porters, it made the porters the medium. Media invented for a forgotten worker beats another discount campaign.

Launched 7 April 2025 as a pilot with ASETRAM-affiliated porters in Gamarra. At Cannes in June 2025 it won two Silver Lions (Outdoor Corporate Purpose; Creative B2B), and Peruvian trade and general press framed it as a new advertising medium rather than a one-off stunt, with local brands and agencies signalling interest in buying cart space. Mibanco, which had previously won three Lions for its Crédito Mujer campaign, positioned EstibADores as the template for purpose-driven media it can scale across Lima's informal economy.