Reimagining public communication for Santa Maria City Hall - turning a stiff, ignored government account into a social media presence people from across Brazil actually wanted to follow.

Art Director Client: Prefeitura de Santa Maria Agency: Agência CENTRO Format: Instagram · Facebook Awards: 3 industry recognitions

Before Agência CENTRO took over, Santa Maria's official social media presence was exactly what you'd expect from a city government: formal, stiff, and completely ignored. The content followed a rigid institutional template - announcements announced, services listed, dates commemorated - but the city's residents had long stopped paying attention.

During the pandemic, with the population's morale low and trust in institutions fragile, the conventional institutional tone wasn't just ineffective - it was actively counterproductive. We needed a different approach.

We started experimenting with memes and internet culture to communicate COVID-19 guidelines. The goal wasn't to be funny for the sake of it - it was to meet people where they already were, speak in their register, and make them stop scrolling.

The first posts to break the mold came during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Humor and empathy replaced bureaucratic language - and people responded.

2020 - Pandemic emergency communication. Started using memes and humor to communicate COVID-19 safety guidelines. Posts began reaching beyond Santa Maria - people from across Brazil started engaging and sharing.

2021 - Expanding the playbook. The format expanded to public works announcements, service notices, and civic campaigns.

2022 - Award-winning campaigns. The "Calourada" back-to-school campaign earned two industry awards. A federal Ouvidoria campaign won a third.

Santa Maria became one of the first municipal governments in Brazil to adopt meme-based, internet-native communication as a deliberate strategy.

The engagement shift was immediate: content that had been ignored for years was suddenly being shared, commented on, and discussed. More importantly, residents began to feel a genuine connection with the city's communication.

The biggest signal: people from outside Santa Maria - other cities, other states - started following and engaging with the account. A local government account had become genuinely interesting to strangers.