Making a month-old wine sound like it's always been here.
Developed during my postgraduate degree in Creative Communication and Advertising at Universidade Católica de Lisboa. The brief: Mandriola de Lisboa — a wine brand barely a month old, named after the city's calm, carefree street cats — needed a campaign that could carry it through its first three years.
A brand this new has no history of its own — so we borrowed one, on purpose.
Fado is the musical style tourists already associate with "real" Lisbon — melancholic, traditional, instantly recognisable. Rather than compete with that association, Fado Mandriola leaned into it: pairing the brand's cat mascot with real Fado imagery and figures, so a brand-new wine could borrow the emotional weight of a century-old tradition, while still feeling playful rather than reverent.
Banners and street presence
Proposed placements across the city — bus shelters, posters, banners — putting the campaign where tourists already look for "authentic" Lisbon.
An original Fado, written for the brand
Rather than license an existing song, the campaign includes an original Fado composed specifically for Mandriola — "Mandriolings" — carrying the brand's name into the tradition itself.
De Lisboa para o mundo
Surge um gato lá do fundo
A miar por mandriola
Com a mão numa viola
Seja em tardes de sesta
Ou noites de festa
Faça-se música bem alto
E gritemos em contralto:
"Mandriola! Mandriola!
Silêncio,
que se vai beber o mandriola
Mandriola! Mandriola!
Vamos miar por mandriola,
Miau!"
Fado icons, printed for the bottle
A set of prints referencing real Fado figures, applied to the bottle itself — small details that turn the product into part of the campaign.
Hand-drawn, not stock
A small custom icon set — pouring, uncorking, toasting, singing — built specifically for the campaign rather than pulled from a library.
Carrying the campaign onto Instagram
Stories, in the moment
This is the project that stretches furthest past visual design alone — concept, illustration, print, social, out-of-home, and an original piece of music, all built around a single strategic idea. It's proof that campaign thinking, not just execution, is something I can carry end to end.