Little Is Out of Bounds in Free-Wheeling World of Brazilian Advertising : Marketing: U.S. celebrities are drawn to the booming market. Even prostitute Divine Brown, of Hugh Grant infamy, makes a pitch--for lingerie.

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Sept. 5, 1995 12 AM PT

From Bloomberg Business News

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Divine Brown, the Los Angeles prostitute whose liaison with English actor Hugh Grant catapulted her to fame, counsels women to spice up their marriages with skimpy lingerie. A leather-clad Sharon Stone teases her tied-up lover with an ice cream cone.

Welcome to the wild world of Brazilian advertising, where not much, even kinky sex, is out of bounds. Like Japan, it’s home to a growing number of Hollywood stars and other U.S. celebrities who figure they can pocket fat fees for touting products without devaluing their image at home.

“These Americans are so damn popular and Brazil has weaker taboos when it comes to sex, alcohol and money,” said Jose Roberto Whitaker-Penteado, the rector of Rio de Janeiro’s Superior School of Marketing and Propaganda.

Not that every pitch is laced with sex and the lure of high living. Aggressive ad execs convinced Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates to appear in an ad for Uniao de Bancos Brasileiros SA’s on-line banking service. Gates did the ad for free, since Sao Paulo-based Unibanco is Microsoft’s Brazilian partner.

The surge of American star power reflects Brazil’s emergence as a global advertising heavyweight. South America’s largest country boasts the world’s eighth-biggest ad market, with $4.5 billion in ad spending in 1994. This year billings could reach $5 billion to $6 billion, said Roberto Duailibi, president of Sao Paulo-based DPZ Advertising.

Television and radio advertising account for about 58% of the ad spending, led by fast-growing TV, according to ad agency DM-9. The remainder is spent on print.

The advertising boom is a direct outgrowth of the increasing competitiveness of the Brazilian economy as tariff barriers have fallen and foreign companies have muscled their way into the market.

There’s still plenty of room for expansion. Brazilian advertisers spent just $26 per capita last year, compared with $140 per person in the U.S. and $115 a year in Japan, the world’s top two ad markets, according to Duailibi.

The industry’s growth has sparked a parallel boom in specialized education. Brazil now boasts a network of 70 communications colleges and 10 graduate programs in advertising, said Whitaker-Penteado. His own communications school, the country’s oldest, was founded in 1952.

U.S. advertising agencies have long been present in Brazil. N.W. Ayer opened a Sao Paulo office in 1926, and agencies J. Walter Thompson and McCann-Erickson set up shop in the 1930’s.

“The American influence has always been noticeable in our advertising industry,” says Whitaker-Penteado, “ but Brazilians quickly elevated advertising to their own creative highs.”

Over the past 12 years, Brazilian agencies have won more than 100 gold, silver and bronze lions at the Cannes, France annual Advertising Awards Festival.

“Over the years, Brazil has produced some of the most inventive advertising in Latin America, and in some cases, the world,” said Ramona Bechtor, a New York-based talent scout for international ad agencies.

Luring American stars to Brazil is one of the main ways Brazilian ad agencies can make a big splash. Sao Paulo’s upstart DM-9 agency demonstrates just how aggressive Brazilian agencies can be.

Founded only six years ago, DM-9 has handled accounts for international clients such as Texaco Inc., Japanese electronics firm Sharp SA and Dunkin’ Donuts Inc., a unit of Britain’s Allied Domecq Plc. Last year, DM-9 won a golden lion award at the Cannes fest.

Some of the firm’s marketing tactics would be all but unthinkable in the more conservative U.S. ad biz. It hired Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown to hawk lingerie for Brazilian producer Valisere. In the ad, Brown says a sexy Valisere undergarment is a sure-fire way to keep men from straying.

DM-9 paid Brown $30,000 for the ad, which is scheduled to begin running this week.

“We’re not shy to make contact with any star that catches our eye,” said Daniela Sachs, an account executive at DM-9.

Last year, the agency made four beer ads for Brazil’s top brewer, Cia. Antartica Paulista. DM-9 hired Whoopi Goldberg, Kim Basinger, Ray Charles and Brazilian soccer legend Pele to star in the ads, which ran during the 1994 World Cup, which Brazil won.

While DM-9 won’t say how much it paid these stars to appear in the ads, they probably got $100,000 or more each for their work, said Bechtor, who arranged Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis’ 1991 plug for Brazil’s Uniao brand of sugar.

“Many stars won’t do commercials in the States because they don’t want their star aura tainted,” Bechtor. “But for the right amount of money, they’re willing to do it in Brazil, where they can capitalize on their popularity.”