Cerveza Aguila's Abuse Disclaimers campaign replaced standard alcohol-health warnings with testimonies from real survivors of gender violence, earning Silver
ARCHIVECerveza Aguila Turns Alcohol Disclaimers Into Survivor Testimonies
Cerveza Aguila's Abuse Disclaimers campaign replaced the mandatory alcohol-health warning voiceover required of all alcoholic drink advertising in Colombia with spoken testimonies from real women who had experienced gender violence connected to men's irresponsible drinking, transforming a legal formality into a public statement about harm.
AB InBev's Cerveza Aguila, produced in partnership with MullenLowe Group agency MullenLowe SSP3 in Bogotá, published the campaign in Colombia in May 2019, anchored to International Women's Day on 8 March of that year. The creative mechanism was precise: rather than retain the standard legal copy that closes alcohol advertising across the country, Aguila reformulated those legally required texts to give voice to women victims of violence linked to alcohol excess. The campaign ran as a digital medium execution containing one primary media asset, and the testimonies it carried were drawn from real survivors, not actors or scripts.
The strategic objective was to initiate a new public conversation using an asset the brand already controlled — the disclaimer itself — rather than creating an entirely separate campaign structure. In Colombia, where mandatory warnings on alcoholic drinks advertising are a regulatory fixture, Aguila and MullenLowe Group identified the closing seconds of every radio and audio execution as an underused platform with guaranteed reach. The campaign sits within the Food and Drink and Alcoholic Drinks category and addresses gender violence as a direct consequence of irresponsible alcohol consumption, connecting brand accountability to social responsibility in a single, formally constrained creative gesture. The Clapboard Score for Abuse Disclaimers is 79 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual clarity and awarded creative craft against a challenging subject matter.
MullenLowe SSP3 identified a structural opportunity inside Colombia's regulatory framework for alcoholic drinks advertising. Carolina Mejía, identified as a MullenLowe SSP3 leader in a statement published by Adlatina, described the campaign's origin directly: Aguila is one of the agency's most recognised clients, and throughout the year the team looks for opportunities to start new conversations using the brand's existing assets. International Women's Day on 8 March provided the moment, and the mandatory legal disclaimer provided the vehicle.
The insight is rooted in the nature of the disclaimer itself. Every alcoholic drink brand operating in Colombia is legally required to append a health warning to its advertising. That warning is, by design, heard by every person who encounters the ad. MullenLowe Group's strategic decision was to treat that guaranteed exposure not as dead air but as editorial space — space that could carry the testimonies of women victims of gender violence caused by alcohol excess rather than boilerplate copy. The brand did not create a separate awareness campaign; it restructured the campaign it was already obligated to run.
Colombia's beer market provides important context for the scale of Aguila's reach. According to Nielsen data reported by El Frente, Colombia's beer market commercialised approximately 25.5 million hectoliters in 2019. Bavaria, AB InBev's Colombian subsidiary and the parent company of Cerveza Aguila, handled approximately 99 percent of that market, a figure characterised by the source as directional rather than definitive. Within Bavaria's portfolio, Aguila, alongside Poker and Pilsen, collectively accounted for a commanding share of national volume. In a market of that concentration, any campaign mechanism embedded in Aguila's mandatory advertising infrastructure reaches an audience of significant scale. Competitors such as Heineken and Constellation Brands operate internationally in the alcoholic drinks space but hold negligible presence in Colombia's beer market relative to Bavaria's dominant position, making Aguila's social platform decisions particularly consequential in the Colombian context.
The creative execution of Abuse Disclaimers rests on a single formal inversion. Standard alcohol-health disclaimers are read at pace, often by a neutral voiceover, and are understood by audiences as regulatory furniture rather than meaningful communication. MullenLowe SSP3 removed that neutral voice entirely and replaced it with the voices of real women who had experienced gender violence connected to men's irresponsible drinking in Colombia.
The restraint of the execution is its defining craft quality. The campaign does not dramatise violence or construct a narrative arc. It occupies precisely the space — in duration and in format — that the legal disclaimer already occupies, which means the disruption is internal to the form rather than external to it. The listener encounters what sounds like a familiar closing sequence and discovers it is a testimony. That formal surprise is the campaign's primary emotional mechanism and the source of its reported media traction.
Carolina Mejía of MullenLowe SSP3, whose statement was published by Adlatina, articulated the strategic-creative junction: Aguila reformulated the legal texts required of all alcoholic beverages — texts that warn that alcohol excess is harmful to health — to give voice to women victims of violence caused by alcohol excess. The reformulation is literal and legal, not merely rhetorical. The brand filed the altered disclaimer as the required closing of its advertising, meaning the testimonies carried the same regulatory standing as the standard warning they replaced. Production credits beyond Mejía's creative leadership at MullenLowe SSP3 Bogotá are not fully documented in public sources available at time of writing, though the campaign is attributed to MullenLowe Group across award submissions at Cannes Lions, the Clio Awards, and The One Show.
ARCHIVEAbuse Disclaimers produced verifiable results across both award recognition and audience reach metrics. According to LatinSpots coverage published on 23 May 2019, the campaign generated more than 2 million traditional-media impressions and approximately 16 million digital impressions. Colombian media outlets including El Tiempo, El Espectador, Caracol Radio, and La W covered the campaign in its first wave of attention, extending reach well beyond the paid advertising inventory in which the disclaimer itself appeared.
The campaign's award record confirms peer recognition at the industry's most competitive level. At Cannes Lions 2019, Abuse Disclaimers received a Silver Lion in the Radio and Audio category and a Bronze Lion in Radio and Audio under the Social Behaviour classification, as documented in Cannes Lions award records. The Clio Awards 2019 recognised the campaign with a Silver award in the Audio Radio category, per Clio Awards records. The One Show awarded the campaign a Bronze Pencil in Radio and Audio at its 2020 ceremony, according to The One Club's published results.
Across these results, the campaign demonstrates what award juries in the Food and Drink and Alcoholic Drinks categories increasingly reward: a creative mechanism that is structurally inseparable from its medium, making the idea impossible to separate from the execution. For Cerveza Aguila and AB InBev in the Colombian market, the campaign achieved simultaneous regulatory compliance, editorial relevance on International Women's Day, and sustained media coverage driven by the novelty of its format. No additional performance data beyond the impression figures reported by LatinSpots is publicly available for Abuse Disclaimers at time of writing.
Cerveza Aguila's Abuse Disclaimers campaign replaced mandatory alcohol-health warning voiceovers in Colombian advertising with testimonies from real women victims of gender violence. Created by MullenLowe SSP3 for AB InBev's Aguila brand, the campaign was published in Colombia in May 2019 and anchored to International Women's Day on 8 March.
MullenLowe SSP3, part of MullenLowe Group, created Abuse Disclaimers for AB InBev's Cerveza Aguila in Bogotá, Colombia. Carolina Mejía is identified as a MullenLowe SSP3 leader on the campaign, per a statement published by Adlatina. The campaign was submitted to major award shows including Cannes Lions and the Clio Awards in 2019.
Abuse Disclaimers won a Silver Lion and a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2019 in the Radio and Audio categories, according to Cannes Lions records. The Clio Awards 2019 awarded it a Silver in Audio Radio, per Clio Awards documentation. The One Show awarded a Bronze Pencil in Radio and Audio at its 2020 ceremony, per The One Club.
According to LatinSpots coverage published on 23 May 2019, Abuse Disclaimers generated more than 2 million traditional-media impressions and approximately 16 million digital impressions in Colombia. Colombian outlets including El Tiempo, El Espectador, Caracol Radio, and La W covered the campaign, amplifying reach beyond its paid advertising placement.
MullenLowe SSP3 identified Colombia's mandatory alcohol-health disclaimer as guaranteed audience exposure already built into every Aguila advertising execution. As Carolina Mejía explained to Adlatina, the agency reformulated those required legal texts to give voice to women victims of violence caused by alcohol excess, turning regulatory obligation into social platform without creating a separate campaign structure.
Bavaria, AB InBev's Colombian subsidiary and parent company of Cerveza Aguila, handled approximately 99 percent of Colombia's beer market at the time, a figure characterised as directional by its source. Colombia's beer market commercialised approximately 25.5 million hectoliters in 2019, according to Nielsen data reported by El Frente, giving Aguila's advertising exceptional national reach.
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