Brazilian newspaper A Gazeta completes 95 years of coverage this year. Its strong tradition of political coverage was seen in its daily print edition. In 2014, the Political Fox — a character created to tell the backstage story of politics anonymously through a fox — was born in the printed newspaper.

The choice of a fox for the character has an explanation. In politics, the animal means a “cunning, insightful, cunning” person. The origin is explained in the literary classic The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, who said that “one of the greatest qualities that keeps a politician in power is to be as cunning as a fox.”

There was no better character then to tell the backstage of state politics.

When we became a 100% digital newspaper, with no printed version, we started to create products focused on making reading easier for the reader, getting closer to the young public — all without losing our essence of producing reliable and relevant content.

That led to the idea of giving life (and animation) to the character Fox Political in the 2020 elections in videos.

In the 2022 elections, with increasing political polarisation and criticism of news coverage, we decided to return with Political Fox, with even more entertaining videos and graphics. The character who deals with electoral news in a playful and fun tone returned and managed to talk about complex and controversial issues of the state election in Espírito Santo. 

The 2022 edition of Raposa Política had a strong distribution strategy on several platforms and channels, increasing proximity to the public. The result was a significant increase in audience.

To reach new audiences, we focused on distribution on Instagram, the leading social network for young people, and also on WhatsApp groups. We even created Fox stickers to send to readers on WhatsApp.

The objectives were:

• Attract new readers.
• Expand the audience of young audiences.
• Make an impact and be mentioned in society.
• Facilitate awareness of political issues by voters.

We had an excellent response on Instagram. Just to give you an idea, comparing the first year of product presentation, in 2020, and its relaunch in 2022, we saw a 225% increase in views of videos like Reels.

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