One of Brazil's largest pharmaceutical companies hired, as Head of Communications, an influencer with no marketing degree, no MBA, who became famous shouting "energy flavor" to 10 million followers. At first glance, it sounds like a joke. Up close, it's one of the smartest marketing moves in years — and it teaches something that applies to any business, from a medical practice to a corner shop.
The starting point: nobody wants to see ads
Cimed understood, before most, an uncomfortable truth: people don't want to be interrupted by ads. They want to laugh, to feel something, to be entertained. When a traditional commercial appears, the brain raises its guard instantly — "here comes someone trying to sell me something" — and the message hits a wall. That's why so much ad budget simply evaporates: it's not that the product is bad, it's that nobody is paying attention.
The move: turning medicine into entertainment
In Brazil there's a law that bans the direct advertising of medicines. You can't run a commercial selling a painkiller the way you sell a soda. Instead of treating that as a limit, Cimed treated it as an invitation to be creative. Instead of an ad, it created entertainment: characters, humor, a kind of soap opera in which the product barely appears — yet the brand sticks in your head. The result is subtle and powerful: when someone walks into the pharmacy to buy any medicine, Cimed is the name they remember. Not because an argument convinced them, but because a story entertained them.
Why it works (it's psychology, not luck)
The difference between interrupting and entertaining lies in what happens in the viewer's brain. Faced with a classic ad, the reaction is defensive. Faced with something genuinely funny, the guard drops: the person laughs, tags a friend, shares, makes a meme. They stop being a passive target and become a voluntary distributor of your message. And there's an old rule behind all of this: we buy from those we like, not from those who get in the way of what we wanted to watch. Likability and familiarity convert better than insistence.
Notice that the cost of this logic is different too. The interruptive ad has to pay to appear again and again. The content people enjoy is spread by them — reach multiplies without you buying each view.
It's not just a Brazilian trend
This movement isn't confined to our market. In the United States, Skims, Kim Kardashian's clothing brand, took a live shopping broadcast — usually a dull, "buy now" format — and turned it into a comedy sketch. People stayed to watch because it was funny, and bought along the way. It's no coincidence that the Wall Street Journal noted that one of the fastest-growing roles in demand at companies is the storyteller: people whose job is to tell good stories. The message is clear: having a good product is no longer enough; you have to know how to tell that product's story in a way people actually want to hear.
What your business can take from this
Here's the important part, because it's easy to look at Cimed and think "that's a giant's game, with a giant's budget." It isn't. The principle is within reach of any business — what changes is the scale, not the logic. A few practical paths:
- Entertain or teach before selling. A bar doesn't need a commercial; it needs a short, funny behind-the-scenes video from the kitchen. A clinic doesn't need to list services; it can lightly explain the question every patient has. Useful or entertaining content is what earns the right to attention.
- Make things people want to share. Before publishing, ask a simple question: "would I send this to a friend?". If the answer is no, it's probably a disguised ad — and the algorithm (and the audience) can tell.
- Have a face and a voice. Toguro works because he's human, imperfect and recognizable. Your brand doesn't need a famous influencer, but it gains a lot from having a clear personality instead of a generic corporate tone.
- Think in stories, not announcements. "We have 20% off" is an announcement. Showing the real customer who solved a problem with you is a story — and stories stick.
In the end, Cimed's lesson isn't "hire an influencer." It's a deeper one: stop competing for the interruption and start competing for the attention people give willingly. Whoever turns their own communication into something the audience wants to consume doesn't need to shout louder than the competition — people start seeking them out. And that's an advantage that media money, on its own, can't buy.
Post inspired by an edition of the Email do Rony newsletter, by Rony Meisler (founder of Reserva), based on the Cimed and Toguro case. Worth reading at the source: businessofbrandspost.substack.com.