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Brahma Beer Turns FC Mariupol Into a Brazilian Football Team
Brahma Beer's The Exiled Team is a 2023 integrated campaign created by São Paulo agency Africa for the Brazilian beer brand, in which the storied local football club A.A. Batel from Prudentópolis in southern Brazil temporarily adopted the full identity of FC Mariupol, the displaced Ukrainian club forced into exile by the war in Ukraine, transforming a regional amateur team into a living symbol of cross-continental solidarity.
Brahma has been associated with Brazilian football since its founding in 1888, according to Ambev, its parent company, and has been the main partner of Brazilian football since 1953. That decades-long relationship gave the brand both the credibility and the cultural standing to act when the war in Ukraine rendered FC Mariupol effectively stateless. The campaign launched on 22 April 2023 and was formally published in Brazil and Ukraine in June 2023, according to the campaign's own documentation.
The geographic logic of the campaign is precise. Prudentópolis, a municipality in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, is home to one of the largest Ukrainian diaspora communities in the Americas, with approximately 75 percent of residents identifying as Ukrainian or of Ukrainian descent. When the war in Ukraine forced refugees to flee, many made their way to exactly this community in southern Brazil, giving the campaign an authentically human foundation rather than a manufactured one. The São Paulo agency Africa developed a multi-channel execution — including a campaign film, out-of-home placements, a dedicated website, and digital advertising — that told the story of how one Brazilian community embraced a Ukrainian football club that no longer had a city to call home. In the United States and globally, campaigns that link brand heritage to humanitarian action have become an important creative category; in Brazil and Ukraine, The Exiled Team represents one of the most structurally coherent examples of that genre to emerge in 2023.
Brahma's strategic premise is historical, not hypothetical. The brand's own creative positioning draws on two documented moments in football history: a 1969 ceasefire in Nigeria during the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, reportedly facilitated around a Pelé exhibition match, and a 2004 period in Haiti where Brazilian football carried symbolic significance during the UN stabilisation mission. These precedents gave Africa agency a coherent strategic narrative — that football has a documented relationship with conflict resolution — from which the Ukrainian angle could be developed without appearing opportunistic.
The insight connecting Brazil and Ukraine is structural. Ukraine has served as an important gateway for Brazilian footballers entering the European market, a relationship that built genuine sporting affinity between the two countries over decades. This pre-existing connection meant that Brahma's act of renaming A.A. Batel as FC Mariupol was not a brand imposition but a recognition of something that already existed culturally. The Ukrainian community in southern Brazil, concentrated most densely in Prudentópolis, gave the campaign a living constituency rather than a symbolic audience.
In the global beer market, Brahma operates within an intensely competitive landscape. According to Finance Yahoo, global beer market valuations in 2023 varied significantly by methodology, with some estimates placing the total market at over 650 billion US dollars. In Brazil, lager represented 97.9 percent of the domestic beer market in 2023, according to Gitnux, placing Brahma in direct competition with Heineken, which has aggressively expanded its Brazilian premium and mid-market presence, and with Ambev stablemate Skol, which competes for the same mass-market football-adjacent consumer. Premium beer reached approximately 18 percent of Brazilian beer sales in 2023, according to Valor Globo, a segment where purpose-driven brand storytelling increasingly differentiates products that are otherwise functionally similar. By anchoring its football sponsorship to a geopolitical moment with genuine local resonance, Brahma moved beyond the conventional beer-and-football playbook that competitors replicate each season.
Africa agency constructed The Exiled Team as a layered integrated campaign rather than a single hero asset. The campaign film sits at the centre of the execution, carrying the emotional narrative of how the Ukrainian community in Prudentópolis relates to FC Mariupol's displacement, and how the temporary renaming of A.A. Batel gave that relationship a tangible, visible form. Out-of-home placements, digital advertising, and a dedicated campaign website extended the story across touchpoints, giving both Brazilian and Ukrainian audiences a way to encounter the campaign in contexts appropriate to each.
The creative voice that defines the campaign's philosophical core belongs to Illia Balaban, Chief Creative Officer and CEO of Who Are You Agency in Ukraine, who contributed directly to the campaign's framing. On 8 June 2023, Balaban stated: "Football has the power of bringing people together under the same passion. So we can keep their hope alive until FC Mariupol can come back home." That statement functions as the campaign's emotional thesis — forward-looking, grounded in community rather than politics, and tied to the specific hope that FC Mariupol will one day return to Mariupol itself.
The Brahma and Africa creative team articulated the campaign's structural logic in their entry for The One Club for Creativity awards, stating: "Football has already stopped many wars. But no war will ever stop the spirit of football." According to oneclub.org, that entry went on to win a 2024 One Show Silver Pencil in the Events and Hybrid category, with 21 total points recorded against Annual ID OS24_EX016S. The decision to physically rename and rebrand A.A. Batel — the most traditional football club in the Prudentópolis region — rather than simply produce a film about FC Mariupol, demonstrates a commitment to activating the real world rather than representing it. Production credits beyond Balaban's involvement and the Africa agency team in São Paulo are not fully documented in publicly available sources, though Reason Why reported on the campaign's award recognition following the 2023 Cannes Lions results.
The Exiled Team earned verified recognition across three of the advertising industry's most competitive award programmes. At the 2023 Cannes Lions, Africa Creative DDB, São Paulo received a Bronze Lion in the Social and Influencer category, entry reference F07/053, for the campaign on behalf of Brahma Beer. The campaign was also a Finalist in the Regional category B01, Social Engagement and Integration for Live Experience, according to Adlatina.
In the same year, the Clio Sports organisation awarded The Exiled Team a Silver in the Fan Engagement — Social Good category, according to the Clio Sports 2023 results. The campaign's recognition continued into the following awards cycle: according to oneclub.org, the 2024 One Show awarded the campaign a Silver Pencil in the Events and Hybrid category, with 21 total points, alongside a separate Merit award. The consistency of recognition across Cannes, Clio Sports, and One Show — three programmes with distinct judging cultures — indicates that the campaign's structural logic resonated with creative and strategic jurors independently of any single awards body's preferences.
No verified independent audience measurement data or sales uplift figures for The Exiled Team are publicly available. Analysis of the campaign's structural effectiveness, however, points to several durable strengths. The geographic specificity of Prudentópolis — a community where the Ukrainian diaspora connection is lived rather than notional — gave the campaign an authenticity that brand-manufactured solidarity campaigns typically lack. The physical act of renaming A.A. Batel created a real-world news hook that extended earned media value well beyond paid placements. Clapboard rated The Exiled Team 74 out of 100, characterising the campaign as a meaningful shift from conventional beer-and-football sponsorship toward substantive community action.
The Exiled Team is a 2023 integrated campaign by Brahma Beer and São Paulo agency Africa. It temporarily renamed Brazilian football club A.A. Batel as FC Mariupol to honour the displaced Ukrainian club. The campaign ran in Brazil and Ukraine from April 2023, rooted in the large Ukrainian diaspora community in Prudentópolis, southern Brazil.
Prudentópolis has one of the largest Ukrainian diaspora communities in the Americas, with approximately 75 percent of residents of Ukrainian descent. When the war in Ukraine displaced refugees, many settled there. This made the community a natural and authentic location for renaming A.A. Batel after the exiled FC Mariupol.
Africa Creative DDB, a São Paulo-based agency, created The Exiled Team for Brahma Beer. The campaign also involved Illia Balaban, Chief Creative Officer and CEO of Who Are You Agency in Ukraine, who contributed to the campaign's creative direction and public framing around football and solidarity.
The Exiled Team won a Bronze Lion at the 2023 Cannes Lions in the Social and Influencer category, entry F07/053, awarded to Africa Creative DDB on behalf of Brahma Beer. The campaign was also a Cannes Finalist in the Regional category for Social Engagement and Integration, according to Adlatina.
The Exiled Team won a Clio Sports Silver in Fan Engagement — Social Good in 2023, according to Clio Sports results. At the 2024 One Show, it received a Silver Pencil in Events and Hybrid with 21 total points, plus a Merit award, according to oneclub.org, making it one of the most-awarded campaigns of its cycle.
Clapboard rated The Exiled Team 74 out of 100. Clapboard characterised the campaign as a meaningful shift from conventional beer-and-football sponsorship toward substantive community action, noting Brahma's use of football as a cultural bridge between Brazilian and Ukrainian communities during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
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