McCann Panamá used the front windows of gyms, CrossFit locations, and padel courts as media spaces to promote a protein milk drink from Nestlé.
Nestlé’s Ideal Evaporated Milk now contains 10g of protein per serving, a 50% increase on the last product. Naturally it made sense to market it as a fitness drink, but standing out in an already saturated category is the real challenge.
Instead of booking standard outdoor billboards, McCann branded large, street-facing windows at CrossFit locations, gyms and padel courts. People exercising inside became part of the ad, visible to pedestrians outside.
Omar Polo, the chief creative officer at McCann Panamá, said: ‘In this way, we turned the athletes themselves into part of the advertisement.’
The installations were supported by additional outdoor placements and rolled out by The Hive, Nestlé’s media hub within IPG Mediabrands.
From a media strategy perspective, gyms and padel clubs offer an audience already engaged in the behaviour the product claims to support. Rather than building association through sponsorship or endorsement, the brand ties itself directly to the idea of training.
It is part of a broader shift in out-of-home planning, where brands look beyond standard formats and treat physical spaces as media in their own right.
The drink itself reflects the continued push to add protein to everyday FMCG products as brands attempt to capture sustained consumer interest in fitness and functional nutrition. The ‘proteinification’ of food and drink has been a theme that has surfaced repeatedly in earnings calls and at industry discussions such as at CAGNY, with food brands adjusting to the habits of GLP-1 users.
The choice of padel venues is also timely. As part of our media opportunities predictions for 2026, we singled out pickleball and other racket sports as something brands should have their eye on. This is especially true in the Ibero-America region. Padel, invented in Mexico, has long been popular in Latin America and remains especially strong in markets such as Argentina.
Nestlé’s campaign, plus Specsavers announcing billboard placements at padel courts in London earlier this month, shows that marketers are recognising padel’s potential for cultural relevance and brand building.
During Nestlé’s most recent earnings call, CEO Philipp Navratil said that future marketing at the company would focus on ‘world-class brand building’, scaling up an operating model built on shared services, and cutting down on the total number of brands under the Nestlé umbrella.