Life Institute's 'Predator vs. Predator' by Master, Curitiba, challenged Brazil's deadly monkey-killing myth during the 2018 yellow fever outbreak through film.
How Life Institute Used a Hawk to Stop Brazilians Killing Monkeys
Life Institute's 'Predator vs. Predator' is a 2018 Brazilian public interest film campaign, created by agency Master in Curitiba, that uses the black hawk-eagle's natural predation of monkeys to argue that nature — not humans — is the appropriate check on primate populations during a yellow fever outbreak, according to Biblioteca Mpf Mp Br.
The campaign launched in February 2018 in direct response to a public health emergency unfolding across Brazil, according to Ultimatepopculture Fandom. Yellow fever had returned to populated regions, and a dangerous misconception had taken hold: that monkeys were spreading the virus to humans and therefore posed a direct threat, according to En Wikipedia. Communities began killing monkeys in alarming numbers. The scientific reality, as documented by health authorities, is that monkeys are incidental hosts and sentinel species, not vectors who transmit yellow fever to people. Humans contract yellow fever through the bite of infected mosquitoes, primarily Haemagogus and Sabethes species in sylvatic cycles, according to information held in public health records archived at the United States National Library of Medicine. Killing monkeys not only failed to reduce human risk but actively dismantled the early-warning system that epidemiologists depend on to track the virus's movement through forest ecosystems.
Life Institute, a Brazilian environmental organisation, worked with Master to address this misconception through film rather than conventional public health messaging. The strategic premise of 'Predator vs. Predator' rests on a single reframing: the black hawk-eagle already hunts monkeys. Nature has its own predator. The campaign's title positions that raptor as the legitimate apex force in this equation and implicitly asks Brazilians to remove themselves from a role they were never meant to occupy. The archive record at Clapboard documents one media asset for this campaign, and the film was published in Brazil during February 2018 by Master on behalf of Life Institute.
Master identified a specific and lethal gap between public perception and epidemiological fact during Brazil's 2018 yellow fever outbreak. The agency's strategic rationale rests on correcting a causal misattribution: communities across Brazil believed monkeys were responsible for human infections, when mosquitoes are the actual transmission agent. This distinction is not merely academic — it determined whether people protected themselves from bites or directed violence toward wildlife.
The broader media environment in which this campaign launched was notably competitive for audience attention, according to Collections Nlm Nih Gov. According to Kantar IBOPE Media, approximately 95,000 companies were advertising in Brazilian media during 2018, representing a ten per cent increase over the previous year, as reported by Economia Uol Com Br. In that same year, more than 34,000 were new advertisers, accounting for approximately 35 per cent of all brands investing in media, according to the same source. A public interest film from a conservation organisation was entering a crowded commercial landscape, which made tonal and strategic clarity essential.
The campaign's competitive frame is also ecological. In the conservation communication space in Brazil, organisations such as WWF Brasil and SOS Mata Atlântica have historically used emotionally direct wildlife imagery to build awareness. Master's approach for Life Institute diverged from that convention by constructing a logical argument — predator displaces predator — rather than appealing primarily to sentiment. The black hawk-eagle functions in the film not as a symbol of beauty or endangerment but as a factual counterpoint to human behaviour. This positions 'Predator vs. Predator' as a corrective public interest communication rather than a traditional conservation appeal, a distinction that shapes its tone, its audience, and its intended behavioural outcome.
Creative director Felippe Motta led the 'Predator vs. Predator' team at Master, with art direction by Rafael Guth and Pesly Krieger, copywriting by Lucas Borba and Bruno Trindade, illustration by Guilherme Match, and photography by Fernando Ziviani. Production was handled jointly by Cuka Filmes and Jamute.
The film's central creative device is the black hawk-eagle — a real apex predator native to South American forest ecosystems — presented as the natural and legitimate hunter of monkeys. The choice of this specific raptor is not decorative. The black hawk-eagle occupies the same ecological niche that panicked communities were attempting to fill through extrajudicial violence. By naming the actual predator, the campaign makes the human impulse to kill monkeys appear redundant rather than merely cruel. This is a more durable persuasive structure than moral condemnation, because it gives the audience a rational exit from behaviour they may have believed was protective.
The illustrative contribution by Guilherme Match suggests a visual treatment that extends beyond purely documentary footage, introducing a graphic language that could heighten the contrast between the hawk-eagle's natural authority and the misplaced actions of frightened communities. Fernando Ziviani's photographic work grounds the campaign in recognisable Brazilian natural environments, reinforcing geographic and ecological specificity rather than abstraction. The production partnership between Cuka Filmes and Jamute, both Brazilian production companies, kept the creative execution rooted in local industry capacity. The tone of the film, as archived by Clapboard, is factual and corrective — closer to an explainer built with cinematic craft than to a conventional emotional appeal. This tonal positioning aligns with Master's strategic choice to address a misinformation problem through clarity rather than pathos.
No verified performance data for 'Predator vs. Predator' is publicly available. No sales lift, awareness shift, behavioural change metric, media reach figure, or engagement statistic has been documented in publicly accessible records, and no budget or media spend data has been published. The campaign does not appear in the verified award records of Cannes Lions, the Effie Awards, The One Show, D&AD, the Clio Awards, the Webby Awards, or WARC Awards.
Structural analysis, however, offers a meaningful basis for evaluation. The campaign addresses a crisis with a defined and falsifiable public behaviour — the killing of monkeys — and offers a single, verifiable counter-argument: a named natural predator already performs this function. That logical architecture is inherently testable and avoids the diffuse outcomes that make many conservation campaigns difficult to evaluate. The geographic specificity of the Brazilian market context, where yellow fever outbreaks are episodic but historically documented by sources including the Brazilian Ministry of Health, gave the campaign an urgent and bounded audience rather than a general one.
The decision to use film as the medium is appropriate to the task of demonstrating predator behaviour in motion, which a static format could not replicate with equal force. The collaboration between two production companies — Cuka Filmes and Jamute — suggests a production scope consistent with film distribution rather than purely digital or social deployment. Clapboard assigns this campaign a score of 63 out of 100, reflecting a coherent strategic premise and purposeful creative execution set against the absence of documented reach and the inherent difficulty of measuring behavioural change in crisis-driven public interest communication.
'Predator vs. Predator' is a 2018 Brazilian public interest film by agency Master for Life Institute. It argues that a black hawk-eagle is the natural predator of monkeys, countering the dangerous misconception that drove Brazilians to kill monkeys during the country's yellow fever outbreak. The campaign launched in February 2018.
Brazilians mistakenly believed monkeys were transmitting yellow fever directly to humans. In reality, yellow fever spreads through infected mosquito bites, not through monkeys. According to public health records archived at the United States National Library of Medicine, monkeys are sentinel species, not direct vectors of transmission to people.
Master, a Brazilian creative agency based in Curitiba, created 'Predator vs. Predator' for Life Institute. The campaign was produced by Cuka Filmes and Jamute, with creative direction by Felippe Motta, art direction by Rafael Guth and Pesly Krieger, and copywriting by Lucas Borba and Bruno Trindade.
'Predator vs. Predator' does not appear in verified award records for Cannes Lions, the Effie Awards, The One Show, D&AD, the Clio Awards, the Webby Awards, or WARC Awards. No documented award recognition for the campaign is publicly available in any of those major international advertising prize archives.
Clapboard assigns 'Predator vs. Predator' a score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects a coherent strategic premise and purposeful creative execution, balanced against the absence of documented performance metrics and the structural challenges of measuring behavioural impact in crisis-driven public interest communication.
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