ABOUT

Executive Summary

Photographed only if a mask covers his entire face. Filmed only if his voice is distorted. Audio recordings prohibited during print interviews. Welcome to the world of BiP, or as the anonymous North American graffiti artist is also known, Believe in People.

Asking journalists to conduct an interview without dictaphones is very rare in Latin America. It also leaves the subject open to misquoting. Yet it does not cause anywhere near as many problems as telling media they will be unable to reveal the face, age, name or any of the subject’s personal details.

This was exactly the challenge faced by the Sherlock Communications’ art and entertainment division while working with BiP during a three-week publicity campaign. And as we quickly learnt, patience, understanding, and strong, respectful relationships with the media are essential in such delicate situations.

Our budget? Zero. He paid us with an original, hand-signed painting.

Background

BiP grew up in a low-income family in the Bronx, USA, and has painted more than 100 murals worldwide in countries ranging from Russia to Hong Kong. His work features distinctive historical personas such as Anne Frank and imaginary characters such as Edward Scissorhands.

Sometimes, however, he takes inspiration from the local communities where he works. This was the case for his first large-scale mural in Latin America, completed in São Paulo in September 2018.

The image of a young boy eating a bowl of rose petals was the product of four months of uninterrupted, solitary and arduous work on a building in the República neighbourhood of the city. Before he started the 2025-sqm work, BiP was as unknown as the man behind the mask. It was our job to help change that.

Strategy:

Although the budget for the campaign was zero, we believed it was a campaign worthy of our time and resources. We were, after all, not the only party working on a pro-bono basis. BiP himself had accepted the commission from Montana Paints without payment. As his name suggests, he is a believer in people and understood that a positive and colourful image might not only brighten up an otherwise dull neighbourhood but could also bring a community closer together. It was a belief in which we concurred.

It would be a learning experience for both parties: BiP would be working in Brazil for the first time and trying to negotiate his passage without speaking a word of Portuguese; we would be pushing our boundaries to work with an anonymous artist with very specific rules regarding contact with the media.

Our first task was to establish BiP’s profile and his work in Brazil. While he had never worked in the country before, we needed to ensure that we did not expose information about him that he did not want in the public domain, such as his real name, age, photographs of his face, or recordings of his voice. The focus should lean towards the art rather than the artist.

During a series of meetings, one of which took place at midnight on the rooftop of a deserted building with BiP dressed in a paint-splattered white jumpsuit and mask, we realised the commitment he had to conceal his identity. We had lined up a broadcast appearance on a leading Brazilian TV show, but they wanted him to show his face. He refused and the TV spot was cancelled.

With that knowledge, we turned all our focus towards print media. The objective was to ascertain what written publications might align with our client. We produced a list of options, focusing primarily on arts and life editors and eventually decided to offer an exclusive interview to Veja, the most influential and prestigious magazine in Brazil. We knew that if we could place an article in a magazine with 50 years of history it would instantly increase BiP’s profile in the country and gain his art massive exposure.

We also offered Folha de São Paulo, Brazil’s most-read daily publication, the country’s first newspaper interview, while making plans for ways to offer other media non-exclusive access that would not jeopardize BiP’s anonymity.

Throughout the campaign we constantly sought balance between publicizing the curious case of an anonymous American painting in São Paulo and the benefits of his graffiti to the local community. For many Brazilians after all, street-art is the only accessible art to which they are subjected. As BiP himself says: “Art needs to stand above the ego.”

On August 6, 2018, an interview with BiP was published in the printed version of Veja, complete with images of the giant mural. The story and images were also published online.

Similarly, Folha accepted our offer of an interview and the resultant story ran on A1, occupying most of the front page as well as an entire page of the printed version. It too was made available online. Our initial attempts to help establish BiP’s profile had been executed and nationwide interest started to grow as Brazilian sites such as Nice Que Disse, Modos e Modas, and Chic e Fashion all carried our press release.

For the inauguration of the mural, we organised an event for the people of the community who lived in the area in which the mural was created. The event was publicized on the artist's social network and brought together a large congregation of residents and workers from the area. An original print — which usually sell for upwards of $10,000 — was awarded to a member of the public, while some of the more than 500 cans of paint that had been used in the mural were autographed by the artist and distributed.

Casa Vogue, the design, architecture and art arm of Vogue magazine, published a story on their website about the unveiling.

Results:

It is easy to look at BiP’s Instagram account and calculate that by the end of our three-week campaign his number of followers had doubled. It is easy to say that the mural was a central piece in the city of São Paulo’s 465-year anniversary campaign and that the wall is now an official Pokemon Go location. Or that through our press campaign we reached an approximate 60.5 million people.

But these facts tell only half the story because the campaign was only partly about BiP, the mural and raising the profile of his art. He and we combined through a belief that through his work, a community could be improved. Results and testimonials from those who live close to the mural (see below) back up that belief.

Perhaps the most telling insight though is that the young boy whose face was emblazoned across the wall in República, a 10-year-old Brazilian who busks for money by impersonating Michael Jackson and who BiP met on a nearby street during the early stages of his creative process, has since been awarded with dance and theatre lessons as well as English classes.

If the campaign has benefited anybody, it is him: Dudu Alves. For us, that alone means it was a worthwhile project. That is why we believed in the project and why we continue to work with Believe in People.

Testimonials:

“It was very cool to accompany all of his work as he went. We kept making bets to see what it would be, if it was a girl or a boy, an indigenous Brazilian. This made us all feel part of the process too,” said a resident who lived in the region and who could see the mural from the window of their apartment.

“The neighbourhood needs things like this,” said another resident. “Here has very few works of art. A thing like this improves the day-to-day life that we have.”