Tag: Brasil FurFest

When I initially contacted BFF to ask about their recent sponsorship agreement I thought that was it. Then Rosca Santigria sent 3 questions:

1: What is your response/feelings about the Brazil Amazon Rainforest fire? There is a lot of public outrage about it in Mexico, USA, and Canada.

2: Are there any efforts or attempts made to rectify the situation? From what I’ve seen, the politiians and rural farmers are defending the burns.

3: How was your experience with parterning with Converse? And do you think its beneficial for furry conventions internationally to use partnerships more often to help bring more positive awareness to the fandom?

What I got back was nothing short of amazing…

BFF: 1. Brasil FurFest is a furry convention and does not comment political issues and we are surely hoping Amazon Forest be protected. 2. Read 1 3. The experience was good, but we think every country is different and what we got in Brazil would be very different if it was in Argentina, for instance, since their market about brands, sponsors and how to show brands is totally different. There is not a single answer. We think our partnership deal with Converse was beneficial for both side since many Furries in Brazil were already fans of the brand and for us it helped setting a better Main Event Room for the event. We are aware next year we might have no partners and now we need to keep the qualify with the event with ticket sales only. We love challenges and we will work hard to make it happen. Keep the quality*

AW: Excellent they will make a great follow up

Now for the Insiders View:

This is the video we shown during the Closing Ceremony (it’s not long) and you will see where Converse brand was shown and also a little about our con(extra: Pepper Coyote really drunk after some caipirinhas – lol)

AW: Cons are best when they give us happy memories. Every Midwest FurFest is like that for me

We had two banners near the elevator like this (this fursuiter even made a Converse sneakers for her fursuit)

We had Converse logo on staff badges (attendees badges doesn’t have Converse logo)

We had the logo during the dance competition at the LED screen they helped us to rent

And during certain moments our logo appeared – not all. So, we didn’t sell our convention to Converse

Oh, the “screensaver” had the logo too

I forgot, we had their logo at the announcements or Dance Competition So, this is all we had of Converse🙂You have a full picture of the subject 🙂

AW: Absolutely

I know a lot has been said about Brasil FurFest and it’s deal with Converse, but the following it directly from Brasil FurFest and 100% Official.

It all started with a single question, “Let’s start at the beginning how did Converse approach you?”

They are doing this year a campaign about groups of people having fun in different ways around the globe (the campaign continues now featuring dancers, basketball teams, motorcycle crews…) and the crew they choose for Brazil was “Furries playing bowling” at our furry bowling event Furboliche

They contacted us and asked if they could take pictures of fursuiters playing bowling for their campaign and if they could tell our story as group

We thought it would be great to show to general audicence Furries doing things for fun, plus, we would get some sneakers and get a nice photo session.

We accepted and we sent the agency several pictures of several fursuiters, so they could pick the models for the campaign

We got payment for the pics plus the sneakers and also the chance to make our event know around.

The campaign was hit here in Brazil, specially with Furries. They never got as many interactions in Instagram like they did with Furboliche campaign… Some posts had more than 1,000 comments (usually they have 8, 10 comments). The marketing agency for the Brazilian industry who got brand rights of Converse here (Converse sneakers in Brazil are made in Brazil) approached us and asked if they could give us “apoio” (there is no direct translation, but it could be called partnership) to improve something in the event in charge of placing their brand inside the event. We accepted since apoio grants US all decisions on where to place the logos. So we had two banners of Converse at the con space, their logo was present during Dance Competition in the LED screen they helped us to rent and all the staff got beautiful Converse sneakers (and all of us were very happy about it)

If you read twitter, you can see almost 100% approval from Furries in Latin America about this partnership. The economic situation of the countries here are very very different from the United States, indeed, because the laws here are more restrictive also for corporates. They can’t do whatever they want like in the USA. Not to mention, as I told before, Converse is just a brand represented by a Brazilian industry here. All Converse shoes we have here are made in Brazil due to the restrictive laws of our country. It’s another world. And it must be said: we would never allow any company dictate our con.

In 2018, an app approached us offering full sponsorship deal, but they wanted all the mailing list of BFF attendees – we said NO. We would never share it with a company.

This said, Brasil FurFest 2019 was a huge success, we had 571 attendees (in 2018 it was 431). The atmosphere was great and we got absolutely 0 complaints from our attendees about Converse, pretty much otherwise, many bought Converse sneakers to support the company who believes and helps the only hotel-based furry convention in the country.