Reclame AQUI: The Colour of Corruption
Reclame AQUI, Brazil's leading consumer protection platform, wanted to expand its mission from corporate accountability to civic rights. They tasked Grey Brazil with finding a way to help citizens identify corrupt politicians amidst a complex justice system. The goal was to empower voters with transparent, accessible information during a time of widespread political corruption and public distrust.
Creative Idea
A browser plugin that highlighted corrupt politicians' names in purple across every website visited.
Reclame AQUI turned the browser into a transparency tool by creating a plugin that highlights corrupt politicians' names in purple across the web, instantly exposing their legal records to empower citizens during a period of peak political scandal.
Turning the Internet Purple with Political Truths
A Database of 70,000 Officials
To move beyond a simple marketing stunt, Grey Brazil partnered with the Catholic Pontificia University of Paraná (PUCPR) to build a massive, real-time database. The technical execution relied on a DOM parser and IndexedDB for instant client-side lookups. This ensured that as a user scrolled through news sites or social media, the plugin could highlight names in real-time without lagging. By 2020, the tool was monitoring all 70,430 political officials in Brazil, pulling data directly from the STF, STJ, and other complex court systems.
The Bruise of Corruption
The choice of purple for the highlight was intentional, designed by Tiago Pinheiro and the creative team to represent a "bruise" on the country. This visual metaphor resonated deeply during the "Lava Jato" (Operation Car Wash) scandal, the largest corruption investigation in Latin American history. Mauricio Vargas, founder of Reclame AQUI, noted that while transparency laws existed, they were poorly designed; the goal was to make the data "impossible to ignore."
From Browser to Pocket
The campaign's impact was immediate, generating $50 million in earned media and reaching 100 million people without a traditional media budget. The success of the Chrome extension led to the 2018 "Corruption Detector" mobile app. Using facial recognition, the app allowed users to point their phones at a politician's face - on TV, posters, or in person - to reveal their legal records. It quickly became the #1 most downloaded free app in Brazil, proving that creative data could serve as a vital civic tool rather than just a sales driver.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
A massive database of consumer complaints and a reputation for holding powerful entities accountable for their actions.
Category
Political transparency is often buried in complex legal jargon and inaccessible government databases that discourage citizen engagement.
Customer
Citizens felt overwhelmed by corruption scandals and powerless to track the legal history of thousands of political candidates.
Culture
The Lava Jato investigation created a national climate of outrage and an urgent demand for political accountability.
Company
A massive database of consumer complaints and a reputation for holding powerful entities accountable for their actions.
Category
Political transparency is often buried in complex legal jargon and inaccessible government databases that discourage citizen engagement.
Strategy:
Transform inaccessible public data into an ambient, real - time layer of accountability within the user's daily digital environment.
Customer
Citizens felt overwhelmed by corruption scandals and powerless to track the legal history of thousands of political candidates.
Culture
The Lava Jato investigation created a national climate of outrage and an urgent demand for political accountability.
Strategy:
Transform inaccessible public data into an ambient, real - time layer of accountability within the user's daily digital environment.
Results
The campaign successfully engaged 20,000 students from Brazil's number one private university to maintain and update the database daily. It reached a massive audience through ReclameAQUI's platform, which helps 85 million people annually. The tool effectively exposed the legal records of 70,000 politicians, making previously 'unreachable' data accessible to any citizen with a browser. The plugin works across all major digital platforms including Google, Facebook, and global news outlets like The New York Times and Le Monde.
20,000
students updating the database
85M
people reached via ReclameAQUI
70,000
politicians tracked
Strategy Technique
Build an Utility, Not an Ad
Instead of a traditional awareness campaign, the agency built a functional tool that solved the problem of information accessibility. This utility became the medium for the brand's message of accountability.
Explore Technique
Creative Technique
Expose the Hidden
The campaign literally makes invisible legal records visible by highlighting names on any website. It uses a visual cue to reveal hidden corruption data directly in the user's browsing flow.
Explore Technique
Craft Breakdown
This campaign excels by turning a complex data problem into a simple, intuitive visual tool that integrates seamlessly into daily life. The use of a single color to signify corruption creates a powerful, immediate visual language.
The creation of a browser plugin that dynamically scrapes and overlays data across any website is a masterclass in utility-led advertising.
The strategic use of the color purple as a brand asset for 'corruption' creates a visceral and memorable visual shorthand.
The narrative effectively bridges the gap between consumer complaints and political accountability with a clear, punchy script.
The UI of the plugin is clean and functional, making dense legal information digestible at a glance.
The synergy between the digital tool's functionality and the bold art direction makes the invisible visible, turning passive browsing into an act of political vigilance.
