marcelo+cherto+translation+advertising

One of the things that calls my attention is publicity material. I am not going to talk about marketing. I am going to talk specifically about publicity. While in the United States it is not only acceptable, as companies that use comparative publicity, comparative announcements between products, are very successful, in Brazil, in general, these comparative announcements are viewed badly: “my product is better than this product.” In Brazil, this is viewed in a negative form. These are things that directly compare the products.
 * Publicity in Brazil – Comparative Publicity **


 * Publicity in Brazil – The role of humor and sensuality **

In Brazil, even very serious subjects can be treated with humor. Humor has a very positive effect in publicity material and in marketing in general. Humor, when it is well utilized, has a very positive effect in terms of Brazilian marketing. It bothers me a little, but the use of sensual images is a reality in Brazil. The use of sensuality is a marked characteristic to sell any type of product in Brazil: images of men and women, beautiful, semi-nude bodies, even to sell tires, shoes, medicines, language courses. It is something very marked in Brazil, and I perceive through my familiarity with foreigners that are startled a little when they arrive in a city such as Sao Paulo or Rio, and they see the billboards with images more than just sensual, and in some cases almost sexual. It is an exploitation of sex, a bit exaggerated, but is a characteristic of the culture, it is part of us, we are a very sensual people and these things are used. One must be careful to not surpass the limits of good taste, and not enter into bad taste. But this is a characteristic of our marketing.


 * Publicity – The Case of Dunkin Donuts **

One interesting thing that I was familiar with at the end of the 1980s, I was working for Dunkin’ Donuts in Brazil. Dunkin’ Donuts had begun for only a short time in Brazil. Donuts were not part of Brazilian culture. A majority of people in Brazil, at that time, did not know what a donut was, did not have any idea, did not have an idea about what time of the day you would eat it... What is this? And what do you eat for breakfast in Brazil? Never a donut. Never. It is not part of breakfast. The donut in Brazil is a snack, a sweet. It is eaten in place of chocolate, or ice cream. But the problem is that in 1989, 1988, during this period, no one knew what a donut was. And the publicity agency that was contracted resolved to adopt a humorous approach. As the budget, the money available for the campaign was small, they wanted to be very creative, and they adopted a strategy to utilize only billboards, with the image of a donut, a picture of a donut, occupying more or less one-third of the billboard and the other two-thirds, only one phrase. The first phrase was “Fat people eat hidden!” This caused horror in the marketing department at Dunkin’ Donuts in the United States, as they did not have an interest in their vision to reinforce the idea that donuts make people fat; a donut is fried, it has sugar, it has flour, it is something that can make you fat. Our vision was the following: it is not worth hiding! Brazilians are going to perceive that this thing makes you fat. So then, let’s use humor!

And this idea “fat people eat hidden,” first generated alot, whole alot of conversation. And afterwards, thanks to God, the Brazilian Association of Doctors and Endocrinlogists, or something that is respected, resolved to make a counter compaign, and published articles in journals against this. The articles in the journals reproduced the image on billboard images. In summary, this business was an enourmous success. Then came the second billboard of the same campaign, which was the image of a donut, the O-ring that looked like a tire, and the words, the phrase at the side was “Calibrate your tire.” “Tires” for Brazilians, are what the Americans call love handles. So, the focus concept was “eat donuts to inflate your tire.” Again, for the Americans what was an absolutely crazy concept greatly increased sales in Brazil. 
 * Publicity – The case of Dunkin’ Donuts **


 * Publicity – The case of Dunkin’ Donuts **

When Christmas arrived, the idea was to utilize the image of the donut with sugar falling on top of it as if it were snow, and the phrase at the side saying, “Santa Claus is fat but he is happy.” So then, this concept was used by Dunkin’ Donuts many times, this idea of complete humor. And I remember there was a time with a lot of rain in the city of São Paulo and the roads had more holes than they normally had. And they put up a billboard which was a picture of the same O-ring, with that whole in the middle, saying, “one more hole in the city.” And then, the local mayor, which at that time was a leftist mayor, it was the city government of the Worker’s Party, felt very offended by the defamatory campaign promoted by an American, and resolved to put up another billboard, with the same format with the photo of workers filling the holes, and the phrase at the side said, “To administrate a city like São Paulo is not a little piece of cake!”, which is Brazilian slang which means, “it’s not easy!” And this referred to the donut. Although this was negative, sales tripled, because again, the newspapers spoke with respect to this.


 * Publicity **

So then, this concept of using “shock,” to use humor, to use this shocking image, but with humor, had a very positive effect in Brazil. But a vulgar shock can have a negative effect. The campaigns of Oliveiro Toscani for Benneton, that used images, photos of war, of bloodied bodies, they were not even a little positive for the image of Benneton trademark in Brazil. The image of the aids patient in his deathbed, that photo was not even a little positive. So then, it is not just to shock, it is to shock with humor. It is to shock with wit, it is to use what we call “humolho,” it is to make something funnier, and to provoke a spark of thought that was not there. This I think is fantastic, this is marketing that works well in Brazil