Saudade is a beautiful word and a bad brief.
It gets written into campaigns aimed at the Portuguese abroad with total confidence, usually by someone who has never left, and it produces videos that a specific group of people find genuinely moving. The problem is which group.
Who you are actually talking to
The Portuguese communities in France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Brazil, the United States and elsewhere are not one audience with one relationship to the country.
They are at least two, they live in the same households, and they behave completely differently at checkout.
The first generation and the second are different markets
Somebody who left is buying a memory, and nostalgia works on them because the thing they miss is real and specific.
Somebody born there, to Portuguese parents, is not missing anything. They have a relationship with the country that is affectionate and slightly external, and a video built on longing addresses their mother. They will recognise it, they may even like it, and they will not feel spoken to, because they were not.
That matters commercially for a plain reason: the second generation usually has the card, the app, the delivery address and the habit of ordering things online.
What the second generation is actually buying
Not heritage. Quality, or specificity, or the fact that this particular thing is hard to get where they live.
A young buyer in Lyon or Geneva will pay for a Portuguese product because it is genuinely better than the local equivalent, or because it is the exact one their family uses and no supermarket there stocks it. Both of those are product arguments. Neither of them is a feeling about the sea.
| Who the video reaches | What Portuguese means to them | What makes them buy |
|---|---|---|
| Someone who emigrated | A place they left | Recognition, and the right brand |
| Someone born abroad to Portuguese parents | Family, food, summers | The product being better or unavailable locally |
| A partner or friend with no Portuguese family | A cuisine they like | Curiosity, and clear instructions for using it |
| A returning buyer of any age | Something they already trust | Shipping that works and arrives intact |
The third row is the one brands forget, and it is often the fastest growing part of the list. Somebody married into the family, ate the thing, and now buys it themselves.
What changes in the brief
Cast younger than instinct suggests, and let the creator speak in the language they actually think in, which for a second generation buyer is frequently not Portuguese.
Then make the video answer the practical questions instead of the emotional one. Can it be delivered where they live, how long does it take, does it arrive intact, and what do you do with it once it is there. A product that travels badly needs the video to say so honestly and show the packaging, because a diaspora order is a long way from a return.
Keep the emotional version too. It works, on the people it was built for, and they are still buying. Just stop running it alone, and stop running it at their children.
Keep reading
- Portuguese Wine and Food Abroad: The Name Problem
- UGC for Portuguese E-commerce Brands
- In Portugal Your Video Competes With the Calendar
- The Worst Two Hours to Film in Portugal
- The complete UGC guide for Portugal
Frequently asked questions
Which language should the video be in?
The one the buyer thinks in. For first generation viewers that is usually Portuguese, for the second it is often the local language, and the safest answer is one version of each rather than a compromise nobody speaks.
Is the diaspora worth targeting separately from Portugal?
Yes, because the shipping, the price and the objections are all different. A video made for a domestic buyer answers none of the questions somebody in another country actually has.
How do we avoid sounding like we are selling their own culture back to them?
Show the product doing something rather than explaining what the country is. Nobody needs their own background narrated to them, and the moment a video starts doing that, the audience it was meant for switches off first.