The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
O Boticário swaps a soap opera's nature shots for real climate scenes — unskippable
O Boticário changed the opening of Brazil's record soap Renascer, replacing its lush nature scenes with footage of the same regions' real environmental damage.
O Boticário
What it had to solve
Brazil was in a crucial moment — the year before, a state had been submerged in the largest climate tragedy in the country's history, and the forecasts were alarming. Yet Brazilians did not focus on sustainability. They did, however, watch soap operas: Renascer set an audience record in 2024, peaking at 75 million viewers with openings full of lush, typical landscapes.
How it works
Brazil was in a crucial moment: the previous year a state had been submerged in the largest climate tragedy in the country's history, and the forecasts were alarming. But Brazilians did not focus on sustainability. They did, however, watch soap operas — Renascer set an audience record in 2024, peaking at 75 million viewers with openings full of the country's typical, lush landscapes.
O Boticário did what no brand had managed to do before: it changed the opening of the soap opera itself. The beautiful scenes of nature were replaced by scenes depicting the current problems in those areas, so the climate crisis entered the country's most-watched daily moment as part of the show rather than as an advertisement around it.
The opening was the unskippable space: not a break viewers could leave, but the frame of the programme itself. By turning paradise-like landscapes into evidence of what those regions face now, a beauty brand put sustainability into the national conversation at a reach of 75 million peak viewers.
Why it lands
- It picked the one medium Brazilians always watch — the soap opera — instead of channels they tune out.
- It changed the programme's own content rather than buying an ad break around it, so there was nothing to skip.
- Replacing the idyllic scenes with the same regions' real damage made the crisis concrete and current, not abstract.
- Renascer's 75-million peak audience gave the message a reach no sustainability campaign had secured.
What it did
The climate crisis appeared in the one place Brazilians were guaranteed to watch: the opening of the country's record-breaking soap opera, which had peaked at 75 million viewers in 2024. No brand had changed a soap opening before, and the move put sustainability inside entertainment rather than beside it.
What you can take
Put the message where the audience already is and cannot skip: the most-watched programme's opening out-delivers any sustainability spot aimed at people who tune out.
Since then
Renascer's opening had showcased the country's lush, typical landscapes; after the change it showed those regions as they are now, mid-crisis. For O Boticário the move staked a beauty brand on the climate conversation in prime time, at a scale — 75 million peak viewers — that no targeted sustainability message could match.
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