Brazil 2020 Election
Building a High-Volume Social Content Operation During a Pandemic
Creative Direction · Social Strategy · Campaign Strategy · Team Leadership
Brazil’s 2020 municipal election happened during COVID-19, when the traditional campaign model of rallies, events, and direct voter interaction was heavily disrupted.
I joined a statewide political communication operation supporting the party leading the Espírito Santo state government, helping candidates adapt their campaigns to a much more digital-first environment.
The Challenge
How do you transform a traditionally offline campaign model when the physical campaign environment suddenly disappears?
The answer required more than producing social posts. Candidates and campaign teams needed new ways to communicate, create content, respond quickly, and use digital platforms as a central part of the campaign.
Phase 01 — Taking Digital Strategy Across the State
I traveled through 23 municipalities across Espírito Santo, delivering talks and workshops for candidates and campaign teams on how to adapt electoral communication during the pandemic.
The focus was practical:
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Social media as a core campaign channel
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Digital alternatives to traditional campaigning
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Content creation with limited resources
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Candidate-to-camera communication
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Building direct relationships with voters online
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Responding faster to local conversations and events
This first phase was about changing the campaign mindset before changing the content.
The creative operation needed enough structure to maintain consistency while still being flexible enough to respond in real time. As Creative Director, I oversaw the full content lifecycle — from strategy and briefing through recording days, photoshoots, candidate-to-camera content, design and video approvals, publishing, rapid-response content, and the coordination of organic and paid campaigns. I also managed significant Facebook Ads investment and led the multidisciplinary team behind the work, including designers, copywriters, videographers, photographers, editors, and freelancers.
Within the broader operation, I worked directly on content and production for two major mayoral candidates in two of Espírito Santo’s largest cities. My involvement extended across the entire process: strategy, production, creative review, publishing, and paid amplification. That meant directing recordings and photoshoots, approving campaign assets, coordinating publishing workflows, and aligning organic content with paid media efforts.
At this scale, creative leadership became less about personally producing every asset and more about making the right decisions quickly — identifying what needed to go live, who should own it, what format best served the message, and how the team could respond to changing campaign moments without losing clarity or quality.
23 cities
Reached during the workshop phase
2 major mayoral campaigns
With direct creative and production leadership
20+ candidates
Supported during
campaign operations
Organic + Paid
Integrated social
content and Facebook
Ads operation
Real-time
Strategy, approvals, publishing, and response
+20 Creatives
Across design, writing, video, photography, and production and TV Commercials
Two fun facts
It was a full-circle career moment.
The company that brought me in to lead this project was the same company where I had completed my first internship from 2013-2014. Years later, I returned to help lead one of its most demanding creative operations.
I never stopped teaching.
While working from campaign headquarters, I was also teaching university classes for four different courses remotely — sometimes moving directly from campaign meetings into the virtual classroom.
Disclaimer: Candidate names, internal political strategy, and sensitive campaign information have intentionally been omitted. The work shown focuses exclusively on creative leadership, social strategy, content production, team management, and campaign operations.