How Conselho Nacional do SESI Made Christ the Redeemer Embrace Brazil
Conselho Nacional do SESI's 'The World's Biggest Hug' is a 2010 ambient public service campaign created by agency Monumenta in Brazil that used mapped-light projection on Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro to make the statue appear to close its arms, symbolising collective commitment to protecting children from sexual abuse.
The campaign operates under the broader 'Carinho de Verdade' — translated as 'True Affection' — platform, a sustained movement to raise awareness of child and adolescent sexual abuse in Brazil and to increase the number of complaints filed with authorities. In a country where thousands of children and teenagers are victims of sexual abuse each year, the challenge for SESI was not simply to communicate a message but to make an entire nation feel personally implicated in the cause. The creative solution was to choose a symbol of mass participation: the hug. Dozens of Brazilian artists joined the 'Carinho de Verdade' movement and offered their own hugs in support, but the campaign team recognised that a deeper rupture with convention was required to break through public indifference.
The answer arrived at an extraordinary scale. For two days, the lights of Christ the Redeemer — one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, standing above Rio de Janeiro — were turned off, and advanced map-projection technology was used to create the illusion that the statue was slowly closing its arms around the city below. The activation launched publicly on 19 October 2010, as documented by campaign records cited on adsoftheworld.com, and produced a single, indelible image: the world's most recognisable monument transformed into an act of protection. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 82 out of 100, reflecting its exceptional integration of location, symbolism, and social purpose within the public service category.
Conselho Nacional do SESI addresses the protection of children and adolescents as a central mandate of its social responsibility programming in Brazil. The 'Carinho de Verdade' platform was designed to shift public behaviour — specifically to reduce the silence around sexual abuse and increase formal reporting — in a cultural environment where stigma and ignorance remain significant barriers to disclosure.
Brazil's media landscape in 2010 was dominated by television, and conventional public service advertising faced acute competition for audience attention. In this context, the strategic decision to bypass broadcast media entirely and instead commandeer the most visited tourist site in the Americas was a deliberate act of disruption. Christ the Redeemer receives millions of visitors annually, according to figures reported by Gov Br and widely cited across Brazilian institutional sources, making it a cultural touchstone with unmatched symbolic authority. By temporarily extinguishing the statue's lights and replacing them with a projection that made the figure appear to embrace the city, SESI and Monumenta created an event that could not be ignored — one that demanded witness rather than passive consumption.
The competitive context for awareness campaigns in Brazil in this period included major activations from organisations such as UNICEF Brazil and the Childhood Brasil Institute, both of which pursued print and broadcast strategies to address child welfare. SESI's decision to occupy physical, monumental space set it apart structurally. The 'Carinho de Verdade' hug mechanic was also deliberately participatory: by inviting artists and public figures to contribute their own hugs, the campaign built social proof before the centrepiece activation, ensuring that the Christ the Redeemer projection arrived in a primed media environment. As documented on adsoftheworld.com, approximately one million people were reached by the projection event itself, demonstrating the amplifying effect of choosing a site of genuine national significance.
Fernando Salis of Visualfarm directed the visual execution of the Christ the Redeemer projection, as documented in campaign credits cited on vjbooking.com and adsoftheworld.com. The technical and creative challenge was formidable: mapping light onto a thirty-metre-tall granite statue positioned at an elevation of seven hundred metres on Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro required both precision engineering and a deep understanding of how projected imagery reads at scale in an open environment.
The core creative idea — attributed to the collaboration between Monumenta and Casanova Comunicação, with Casanova Brasília credited for the on-site execution — was to use the statue's existing outstretched arms as a ready-made narrative device. Rather than imposing an external image onto the monument, the concept exploited what was already there: two arms, already extended, waiting to close. The animation of the projection simulated this closing motion in a slow, deliberate arc, reinforcing the emotional register of a genuine embrace rather than a spectacle. The lights-off period was essential to this effect; without the darkness, the projection would have lacked the contrast necessary to read at the scale required.
The surrounding 'True Affection' campaign materials — featuring Brazilian artists recording their hugs — provided the documentary texture that gave the ambient activation its human context. This layering of human testimony with monumental gesture is what elevated the execution beyond a technical stunt into a coherent piece of social communication. The choice of ambient medium was not incidental: in 2010, projection mapping was still a relatively novel form in Brazilian advertising, which meant the execution carried genuine novelty value in a market where such techniques had not yet become commonplace. As recorded on adsoftheworld.com, the campaign was published in Brazil in August 2010, with the Christ the Redeemer event staged in October of the same year.
The campaign earned recognition at the most significant advertising award bodies active in 2011. According to records cited on adsoftheworld.com, 'The World's Biggest Hug' received a Cannes Lions Bronze Lion in the Outdoor category, a Clio Awards Silver in Innovative Media, two New York Festivals Silvers — one in Avant-Garde Place Based Media and one in Avant-Garde Video Projections — and multiple honours from Brazilian industry bodies including AMPRO Globes Gold for Melhor Campanha de Responsabilidade Social, AMPRO Globes Silver for Melhor Ideia ou Conceito Inovador, a Colunistas Brasília Grand Prix for Ação Promocional, and a Colunistas Nacional Grand Prix for Evento Promocional do Ano. This concentration of recognition across international and domestic juries in a single awards cycle is unusual for a public service campaign operating on a non-commercial budget.
In terms of reach, approximately one million people witnessed the Christ the Redeemer projection directly or in the immediate surrounding area, according to campaign documentation cited on adsoftheworld.com. The ambient event generated significant earned media coverage across Brazilian press and international advertising trade publications, amplifying the social purpose message beyond the two-day installation window. In Brazil, where child sexual abuse remains a documented public health and human rights concern — as outlined in reports published by Docstore Ohchr and studies available through Scielo Br — the campaign's structural effectiveness rests on its capacity to make a hidden crisis visible through a universally legible symbol. The hug did not require translation. It required scale, and Christ the Redeemer provided exactly that.
'The World's Biggest Hug' was a 2010 public service campaign by Conselho Nacional do SESI and agency Monumenta in Brazil. It used mapped-light projection on Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro to simulate the statue closing its arms, raising awareness of child sexual abuse under the 'Carinho de Verdade' platform.
Fernando Salis of Visualfarm directed the visual execution of the projection, as documented on vjbooking.com and adsoftheworld.com. Monumenta served as the primary advertising agency, with Casanova Comunicação credited for the campaign concept and Casanova Brasília credited for the on-site Christ the Redeemer execution.
The campaign won a Cannes Lions Bronze Lion in Outdoor and a Clio Awards Silver in Innovative Media, both in 2011, according to adsoftheworld.com. It also received two New York Festivals Silvers, an AMPRO Globes Gold for social responsibility, and Grand Prix honours at both Colunistas Brasília and Colunistas Nacional.
Christ the Redeemer is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World and a symbol of universal recognition in Brazil. SESI and Monumenta chose the monument because its outstretched arms provided a ready-made visual metaphor for a hug, and its national significance guaranteed an audience no broadcast campaign could match.
The statue's existing lights were turned off for two days, providing the darkness required for mapped-light projection to read at scale on the thirty-metre granite structure. Advanced projection mapping then animated the illusion of the statue's arms slowly closing, as documented in campaign records on adsoftheworld.com and vjbooking.com.
Approximately one million people witnessed the Christ the Redeemer projection directly or in the surrounding area, according to campaign documentation cited on adsoftheworld.com. The event also generated substantial earned media coverage across Brazilian press and international advertising trade publications, extending reach well beyond the two-day installation window.
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