Brand from Santa Catarina bet on greater involvement with local culture, such as the State and Oktoberfest, as Gustavo Petry (photo) told
This year, Fort Atacadista became even more involved with the culture of Santa Catarina, a state where it is one of the main retail players. First it was with Campeonato Catarinense, which had the brand as naming rights, and now, finally, the sponsorship of Oktoberfest in Blumenau.
This strategy has yielded results, proof of which is that the Pereira Group, owner of Fort Atacadista, has revenues of R$ 11 billion this year.
And Fort Atacadista represents almost 70% of that total, says Gustavo Petry, the brand’s marketing manager.
How was Fort Atacadista born?
The Fort is the flagship of the Pereira Group, which, in 2022, celebrates its 60th anniversary. But, in fact, the group’s first retail model was Comper Supermercados, which started in the Itaja region, in Santa Catarina. And Fort Atacadista appeared in 1999, also in Santa Catarina, in the city of Joinville. So, we are celebrating 23 years and we already have 51 stores and, soon, we will reach 52, which will be the tenth in Campo Grande (MS). From Joinville, Fort gained territory, went to Greater Florianpolis, and followed Comper’s path through the Midwest region of Brazil, and in the Federal District. Today, we are present in So Paulo, in Jundia, 31 stores in Santa Catarina and, soon, in Rio Grande do Sul, with five stores. There is a long-term expansion project for the Group, which is heavily based on Fort Atacadista. The Group intends to double in size over the next seven years. For the next year, more than R$ 600 million are expected to be invested in this expansion. But, as much as it is based on Fort Atacadista, it is not limited to it. We have grown with Comper Supermercado, which has opened stores, and the pharmacy, which has grown and accompanied this opening.
What was it like sponsoring Oktoberfest?
First time we go to the party, which is the biggest outside Germany, the second biggest Oktoberfest in the world. We are talking about an event designed for the family to enjoy. a party that, with all this tradition, came back with everything this year. For us, it was really cool to participate in this year’s Oktoberfest. We have a habit of not doing brand involvement that is not for real. We would never walk into the party just to have our brand there. We set up a Fort Atacadista space with interaction with the entire party audience. It was a space that was careful with the customer to become a good brand experience, and not just a brand presence at the party.
How did you decide to bet on Oktoberfest?
We have a lot of responsibility for being the biggest player in Santa Catarina, and the Group will be the seventh largest retail group in Brazil. So, for that reason, we started to map everything that is great in Santa Catarina. And Oktoberfest represents that very well. In October of last year we came to Blumenal and talked to the city’s Secretary of Tourism, who noticed that we were excited about the party. So, they had a history with the competitor who, by not signaling that they would like to renew, soon opened up to us. And we started a relationship that I hope will be a long one.
How was the communication strategy designed for Oktoberfest?
We have been doing a job, which started before the party, of being the best partner for people from Santa Catarina. And one of the attributes is to use our name as one of the adjectives. Both abroad and here in Santa Catarina, we have used phrases such as Vem ser Fort, A loja de quem Fort. So, Fort became an adjective within our line of communication. For Oktoberfest, for example, Oktober is stronger, a line that guided our entire campaign for the party. We take the adjective, we take the brand, we take the party together. We invited the royalty of the party to be part of it, that is, we invited the queen and the princesses are our digital influencers, in addition to having starred in our entire campaign for Oktoberfest. We understand that we managed to close this 360 communication well and bring the party outside, and the party inside the store.
Has the Fort always had this DNA of the local culture?
This Fort involvement has always existed in the communities. When we rescued the history of the Fort, in Joinville, the brand sponsored a bike ride in the city. Joinville is a German city that has a very strong bicycle culture, not only for leisure, but also as a means of transport. This DNA of the Pereira Group already existed. And, continuing this, we took this particularity and took it to bigger events. So, instead of being alone in the city, take it to the strong. I think football is a bit like that, since we were naming rights for this year’s Campeonato Catarinense. In other words, the issue of culture is very important throughout the state, but it is stronger here in the Itaja Valley. People go dressed in typical clothes because they feel part of it.
And what was it like to be the naming rights of this year’s state?
The Catarinense Championship is about emotional involvement, which we believe a lot, but also about entertainment. Teams from Santa Catarina are represented in different series of the Brazilian Championship, but, within the state, there is a rivalry relationship that is very cool, and we like to get involved with that, mainly, because each city has this passion for the local club. . And, as we are inserted in 11 of the 12 cities that have teams disputing the tournament, we have actions that start at the store and end, for example, at the stadium. We activated all the transmission part of the open channel that showed Catarinense, we had naming rights Catarinense Fort Atacadista , and we also gave names to the streaming that showed the games, which was Catarinense Fort.TV, so that anyone could watch it on Any place in the world.
And was it also the brand’s first involvement with football?
We had already done something in football, but nothing very big, and this was the first time that we entered a competition properly so called. The idea was to occupy an important space in the lives of people from Santa Catarina. So, we approached the federation, through a partner, and we started designing this plan to transform football into something stronger. Then again, we take Fort as an attribute. We understand that we have the role of being a protagonist, and not just putting the brand there. So, we worked on a discount on streaming subscriptions for those with our card, we activated the stadiums with halftime challenges, even setting up bars inside and outside the stadiums, where fans could go to warm up before and during the match. game, with snacks. In Santa Catarina, there is an important detail: here, the sale of alcoholic beverages inside the stadiums is allowed.
How is Fort communication split up?
We are in the process of modernizing communication. The brand was built, very well built, within traditional media, on television, radio, billboards and leaflets, which is very important within the retail segment. So, in fact, we didn’t end up with any of these fronts, we just equalized the presence on each of them. Today we do more television than we did in the past. We have a presence on the radio, because we understand that it is a vehicle that helps us in regional involvement, and we have been trying to grow digital, aligned not only with the new tools, but also with these brand moments that we have been doing. That is, each of these sponsorships that we make is taken to the traditional media, but we tell this story in digital. Our concern is to create content and show each of the sponsorship moments that we do on digital.
In terms of investment, is TV still the biggest?
Yup. When we look at pizza, TV and outdoor media are still the protagonists, but in the sequence we have the digital and radio part gaining more and more space.
How do you want the Fort Atacadista flag to be seen in a few years?
I think we have a brand reality in Santa Catarina, and a brand reality in other regions. For example, we had a pleasant experience when we entered So Paulo, in the city of Jundia, which has more than 450,000 inhabitants, apart from all the consumption potential of surrounding municipalities. Our brand recall in the region was very good, as were in-store sales. We believe that our store model, our business model, was very assertive, and it works well anywhere. But we have to understand that each place will have different competitors and different consumption behavior. So, part of our business strategy is to respect each of these places and their particularities. I think that if we continue on this path of building a brand perceived as price, economy and, above all, bringing quality and variety, we will be very satisfied.
What is the revenue expectation for this year?
In 2022, the Pereira Group should earn something around R$ 11 billion, and Fort Atacadista represents almost 70% of that revenue. So, he is the main flag of the group. And when we talk about next year, with the opening of new stores, we are talking about a growth close to 20%.
