With the regulated Brazilian market finally having come online in January, eyes are on the country to see how things shape up in its early days. Luke Kenna, senior market growth strategist at ICS looks at the growing popularity of influencer marketing in Brazil and how the legalisation will impact things.
When looking at some projections of the monetary value of the regulated online betting space in Latin America - Vixio estimates $12.3 billion by 2028 - it is clear to see why many are willing to move mountains to earn a seat at the Brazilian table. Given that it’s a market that is touted to make up over 50% of this eye-watering and astronomical valuation.
Influencer marketing as a tactic, in particular, is one with a well-established popularity amongst local Brazilian audiences, and across Latin America. One only needs to look at the influence of public figures and sporting superstars like Neymar Jr. to understand the scope.
According to Brandwatch, Neymar is the 19th most-followed person on Instagram, with a following of 227 million, which is larger than the population of his home nation.
Furthermore, influencers in the betting space have become so popular, that some actually started their own betting operations.
In 2023, viral football influencer, Luva de Pedreiro, launched his own operator platform, Luva.bet, with artist MC Daniel. The platform was developed together with Playtech and provided a site where players could actually place bets on a simulated penalty kick (a stalwart feature of Luva’s video content).
For campaigns to succeed, brand values have to be aligned with influencers to deliver the right kind of engaging content
The influencer space will be one to watch for marketers and in this article, we’ll be looking at why this channel is particularly popular in Brazil as well as some of the most effective ways that this has been done throughout 2024, and what we can expect in 2025.
Brazilian landscape
It’s important to understand the social media context within the Brazilian landscape to fully grasp the size and potential of the influencer phenomenon within this market:
- In 2023, it was reported that there were approximately 18.9 million Instagram influencers across the LatAm region. At the time, this accounted for nine per cent of all Instagram users worldwide.
- Brazil has the third highest number of TikTok users globally (111.3 million), behind Indonesia in first place (165.1 million) and The United States in 2nd (137.9 million).
For campaigns to succeed, brand values have to be aligned with influencers to deliver the right kind of engaging content; the right opportunities and partnerships need to be pursued at the right times; and the right kind of localised messaging needs to be adopted.
2024 snapshot
Looking at the pre-regulation situation, the total investment in digital advertising across Latin America between 2020 and 2022, for example, was around $34.7 billion (Influencity). The majority of this investment came from Brazil (34% of total investment), followed by Colombia (21%), and Mexico (16%).
One example of influencer partnerships in Brazil’s pre-regulatory online betting era is Betsson’s World Cup 2022 predictions campaign or ‘Desafio Betsson’, which saw the likes of former Brazilian footballers, Zé Roberto and Sávio, challenging other ‘influencers’ to guess the scores of games across the competition.
2022 and 2023 saw Ronaldo Nazário (O Fenômeno) join another Brazil legend, Rivaldo, as an ambassador for Betfair in the ‘RonaldoVerso’ campaign. This was an interesting angle that saw O Fenômeno whisked off to an alternate reality in which he never became a footballer.
These are examples of how global igaming organisations have tactically leveraged relevant and local influencers and celebrities to generate engagement and buzz amongst new and existing customers.
Fast forwarding to 2024, there was no shortage of notable influencer partnerships.
Betplay
After launching in Brazil in August 2024, Betplay sought to engage with audiences on a hyper-local level, targeting the state of Paraná.
To do this, it recruited a team of local football and sports influencers (predominantly micro-influencers with 10,000-100,000 followers on Instagram), most of whom had strong affiliations with Club Athletico Paranaense - the football club from Paraná’s capital of Curitiba.
The success of this ‘local’ influencer approach is also echoed by Betano, one of the leaders in the Brazilian betting market for market share, who ran influencer activity on a regular basis to ‘create a strong emotional bond with fans’.
This approach incorporated using influencers as part of a wider brand strategy that also involved the sponsorship of Club Atlético Mineiro and raising awareness of gender equality in sports, through the ‘Juntos em Campo’ initiative.
Ronaldinho Crash
It is no surprise that Ronaldinho was the protagonist for not one, but two, of his own betting games as part of two separate partnerships.
Leading Latin-focused games developer, FBMDS, partnered with Brazilian bookmaker, Estrelabet, to develop ‘Ronaldinho Crash’.
Ronaldinho’s reputation as a public figure amongst the Brazilian public is no doubt an invaluable aspect to leverage to spark curiosity
This appears a strategic move given the growing popularity of crash games in Brazil - which was recently reported as the second most popular casino game across the nation.
Ronaldinho’s reputation as a public figure amongst the Brazilian public is no doubt an invaluable aspect to leverage to spark curiosity.
Beyond this, Ronaldinho even had a full game series developed with his likeness by Booming Games back in 2023.
Neymar gets in on the action
As part of Neymar’s lucrative brand ambassador deal with Blaze, 2024 saw the player join the elite club of Brazilian footballers with their own casino games - with Blaze developing Neymar’s own crash game.
Another way that Blaze leveraged this partnership was by asking the superstar to select his favourite gaming titles across Blaze’s portfolio.
Unfortunately, last year this partnership also developed into quite a dicey legal dilemma for the Santos forward.
Under the new online betting regulations in Brazil, brand reputation and audience targeting policy are going to be vital considerations when running influencer marketing campaigns moving forward - and this is one example of how it can be detrimental to brands.
2025 predictions
For international operators, the key to marketing success in any new market and language is having the native resource (whether in-house or external) to develop localised content marketing strategies that genuinely resonate.
We predict the following trends for influencer marketing in 2025:
Football remains number 1
Don’t expect the trend of partnering with football influencers to slow down or change in 2025 but consider how aspects of this approach could become saturated and overplayed.
Instagram shows no signs of losing popularity
In 2025, Brazil is estimated to have over 134 million Instagram users. This makes Brazil the third most populated country on Instagram, after India and the United States.
According to Influencity, an influencer platform that we utilise at ICS-digital, there are 138,166 Brazilian Instagram influencers (with 10k>1m followers) available with an interest in sports and/or gaming.
Comparatively, the platform currently has only 566 options (of the same criteria) available for TikTok highlighting the disparity in popularity between the platforms.
There are 138,166 Brazilian Instagram influencers available with an interest in sports and/or gaming
This gives us some context on:
The popularity of gaming and sports influencers, with 138,166 options based in Brazil, according to this platform alone.
The opportunity to connect and engage with millions of potential customers through influencer partnerships for follows, sign-ups, deposits and more.
Advertising regulations will become more structured:
As we saw from the legal dilemma that Neymar Jr. found himself in last year, it’s imperative that we consider the regulatory complications of advertising through influencer marketing.
Creativity, innovation, and compliance will be needed in order to ensure that influencer campaigns comply with local legislation but also cut through, resonate, and deliver desired results.
Luke Kenna
is the senior market growth strategist specialising in Latin America at the global digital marketing and translations agency, ICS-digital. Luke specialises in advising igaming brands on Latin American growth strategies, leaning on over seven years of experience in the industry.