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The Desperation of the Military's Economists: Advertising as a Way to Fight Inflation in 1970s Brazil
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2021
Abstract
This article describes the Brazilian civil–military dictatorship's anti-inflation advertising campaigns in 1973 and 1977. It shows how Finance Ministers Antônio Delfim Netto and Mário Henrique Simonsen used advertising as a substitute for economic policy. It argues that they turned to advertising to divert attention from their own policy failures by blaming urban women, small shopkeepers and consumers for the growing inflation problem. This article details the background of the campaigns and examines the advertisements, especially their use of normative gender ideologies. By reference to newspapers and political speeches, it also documents the social and political reaction to the campaigns.
Spanish abstract
Este artículo describe las campañas de anuncios antiinflacionarios de la dictadura cívico-militar brasileña en 1973 y 1977. Muestra cómo los Ministros de Finanzas Antônio Delfim Netto y Mário Henrique Simonsen usaron anuncios propagandísticos como sustitutos de políticas económicas. Señala que utilizaron dichos anuncios para desviar la atención sobre las fallas de sus políticas al culpar a mujeres urbanas, pequeños tenderos y consumidores por el creciente problema inflacionario. Este artículo detalla el contexto de las campañas y examina los anuncios propagandísticos, especialmente el uso de ideologías normativas de género. Utilizando periódicos y discursos políticos, también documenta la reacción social y política a estas campañas.
Portuguese abstract
Este artigo descreve as campanhas de publicidade anti-inflação promovidas pelas lideranças da ditadura civil e militar entre 1973 e 1977. Demonstra como os ministros de finanças Antônio Delfim Netto e Mário Henrique Simonsen usaram campanhas publicitárias para desviar a atenção das suas políticas econômicas mal-sucedidas, em seu lugar responsabilizando a mulher urbana, os pequenos comerciantes e os consumidores pelo problema da inflação crescente. Este artigo expõe em detalhes o pano de fundo destas campanhas publicitárias e analisa os comerciais, prestando particular atenção ao uso de ideologias normativas de gênero. Através da análise de jornais e discursos políticos, também documenta as reações sociais e políticas às campanhas.
Keywords
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Médici and the other military leaders used advertising, political propaganda and public relations as key parts of their overall set of policies. See Garcia, Nélson Jahr, Sadismo, sedução e silêncio: propaganda e controle ideológico no Brasil, 1964–1980 (São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 1990)Google Scholar; Fico, Carlos, Reinventando o otimismo: ditadura, propaganda e imaginário social no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 1997)Google Scholar; Weber, Maria Helena, Comunicação e espetáculos da política (Porto Alegre: Editoria da UFRGS, 2000)Google Scholar; and Schneider, Nina, Brazilian Propaganda: Legitimizing an Authoritarian Regime (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 ‘Começa campanha contra inflação’, Folha de São Paulo, 18 April 1973, p. 9, accessed online via https://acervo.folha.com.br.
3 Skidmore, Thomas E., The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964–85 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 89–93 and 138–44Google Scholar; do Lago, Luiz Aranha Corrêa, ‘A retomada do crescimento e as distorções do “milagre”, 1967–1974’, in de Paiva Abreu, Marcelo (ed.), A ordem do progresso: dois séculos de política econômica no Brasil, 2nd edn (Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier, 2014), pp. 213–39Google Scholar; and Hermann, Jennifer, ‘Reformas, endividamento externo e o “milagre” econômico (1964–1973)’, in Giambiagi, Fabio, Villela, André, de Castro, Lavinia Barros and Hermann, Jennifer (eds.), Economia brasileira contemporânea: 1945–2010, 2nd edn (Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier, 2011), pp. 49–72Google Scholar.
4 I use the term ‘advertising’ rather than ‘propaganda’ or ‘public relations’ to describe the two campaigns for several reasons. First, the Portuguese word ‘propaganda’ means ‘advertising’ in addition to ‘propaganda’. Second, Brazil's leading private advertising agencies carried out the work for the two campaigns. They thus approached them as they would any other advertising campaign. Finally, government officials described them, at the time, as advertising.
5 Garcia, Sadismo; Fico, Reinventando; Weber, Comunicação; and Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda.
6 Two historians tangentially mention the inflation campaigns, which they examine through the framework of the social imaginary: Fico, Reinventando and Thiago Nunes Monteiro, ‘“Como pode um povo vivo viver nesta carestia”: O movimento do custo de vida em São Paulo (1973–1982)’, MA diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 2015.
7 Skidmore, Politics; Lago, ‘A retomada’; and Hermann, ‘Reformas’.
8 For literature about women's political participation, see Tabak, Fanny and Toscano, Moema, Mulher e política (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1982)Google Scholar; for women's social movements, democracy and dictatorship, see Alvarez, Sonia E., Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women's Movements in Transition Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; and for feminism and gender, see Sarti, Cynthia Andersen, ‘O feminismo brasileiro desde os anos 1970: revisitando uma trajetória’, Estudos Feministas, 12: 2 (2004), pp. 35–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 For analyses of gender and gender ideologies in Brazil, see Alvarez, Engendering; Wolfe, Joel, Working Women, Working Men: São Paulo and the Rise of Brazil's Industrial Working Class, 1900–1955 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Besse, Susan K., Restructuring Patriarchy: The Modernization of Gender Inequality in Brazil, 1914–1940 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Weinstein, Barbara, For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920–1964 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Caulfield, Sueann, In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century Brazil (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elza Dely Veloso Macedo, ‘“Ordem na casa e vamos à luta!” Movimentos de mulheres: Rio de Janeiro, 1945–1964. Lydia da Cunha – uma militante’, PhD diss., Universidade Federal Fluminense, 2001; and Cowan, Benjamin A., Securing Sex: Morality and Repression in the Making of Cold War Brazil (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Though Monteiro asserts it is not possible to examine the reception of the campaigns (‘O movimento’, p. 131), newspapers are a great primary source for documenting the social reaction to them.
11 Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda, pp. 7–8. The classic study of IPÊS is René Armand Dreifuss, 1964, a conquista do estado: ação política, poder e golpe de classe (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1981), especially chapters 5–9.
12 Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda, pp. 9 and 110.
13 Ibid., pp. 24–5.
14 de Abreu, Alzira Alves and de Paula, Christiane Jalles (eds.), Dicionário histórico-biográfico da propaganda no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: FGV, 2007), p. 65Google Scholar and Woodard, James P., Brazil's Revolution in Commerce: Creating Consumer Capitalism in the American Century (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020), pp. 260–1Google Scholar.
15 Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda, pp. 15–16.
16 Fico, Reinventando, pp. 121–44 and Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda, pp. 26–64.
17 Fico, Reinventando, pp. 137–8.
18 Woodard, Brazil's Revolution, pp. 273–4 and Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda, pp. 17–20.
19 Fico, Reinventando, pp. 100–1 and Schneider, Brazilian Propaganda, p. 19.
20 The academic literatures about advertising, public relations and marketing are too large to cite here. For one recent article about the use of advertising in politics, see Matthew P. Motta and Erika Franklin Fowler, ‘The Content and Effect of Political Advertising in U.S. Campaigns’, in The Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Politics (December 2016), pp. 1–33, available at https://oxfordre.com/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-217 (last accessed 2 Dec. 2020).
21 Ibid., pp. 3–4. See also Moore, Timothy E., ‘Subliminal Advertising: What You See Is What You Get’, Journal of Marketing, 46: 2 (1982), pp. 38–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Lago, ‘A retomada’, p. 216.
23 The exact numbers vary depending on the index used. See Ipeadata (http://www.ipeadata.gov.br), ‘Preços – Índice Geral de Preços–Disponibilidade Interna (IGP-DI) – Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Conjuntura Econômica’ (enter ‘IGP-DI’ as the search term and select ‘Preços - IGP-DI’, annual series) and ‘Inflação – ICV-SP – Departamento Intersindical de Estatística e Estudos Sócio-Econômicos (DIEESE)’ (enter ‘ICV-SP’ as the search term and select ‘Inflação - ICV-SP’, annual series).
24 Lago, ‘A retomada’, p. 227 and Hermann, ‘Reformas’, p. 66.
25 Ibid., p. 68.
26 Matthew Nestler, ‘Inflation and Inequality in Urban Brazil, 1944–1978’, unpublished PhD diss., Stanford University, in progress.
27 Ibid.
28 de Almeida, Fernando Lopes, Política salarial, emprego e sindicalismo, 1964–1981 (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1982), pp. 23–4Google Scholar and Skidmore, Politics, pp. 74–8.
29 Ibid., pp. 81–4.
30 Ibid., pp. 88–9 and Maurício Horta, ‘Mito: “durante a Ditadura Militar, a tortura ocorreu só em casos isolados”’, Superinteressante, 28 Sept. 2018, available at http://super.abril.com.br/historia/mito-durante-a-ditadura-militar-a-tortura-ocorreu-so-em-casos-isolados/ (last accessed 2 Dec. 2020).
31 Fishlow, Albert, ‘Brazilian Development in Long-Term Perspective’, The American Economic Review, 70: 2 (1980), p. 107Google Scholar and Lago, ‘A retomada’, p. 219.
32 ‘Nova etapa na luta contra inflação’, Folha de São Paulo, 1 April 1972, p. 1.
33 Lago, ‘A retomada’, p. 234; Skidmore, Politics, pp. 134–8; and Marcos Napolitano, 1964: história do regime militar brasileiro (São Paulo: Contexto, 2014), pp. 224–8.
34 Lago, ‘A retomada’, p. 219.
35 Ipeadata, IGP-DI; Ipeadata, ICV-SP; ‘Londres vê inflação brasileira’, Correio da Manhã, 9 May 1972, Arquivo Nacional (hereafter AN), Fundo Correio da Manhã, BR RJANRIO.PH.1346; and speech by Antônio Bresolin at the National Congress, Diário da Câmara dos Deputados, 29 Aug. 1973, p. 4981.
36 Fico, Reinventando, p. 140.
37 ‘Nova campanha do CNP’, Propaganda, no. 201, April 1973, p. 58, Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro.
38 ‘CNP e a campanha contra a inflação’, Folha de São Paulo, 21 April 1973, p. 5.
39 ‘Lance-livre’, Jornal do Brasil, 21 June 1973, 1o Caderno, p. 10. Most of the contemporary newspapers cited in this article can be accessed online via the Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira, http://bndigital.bn.br/hemeroteca-digital/.
40 ‘Parando a inflação’, Jornal do Commercio, 13 April 1973, 2o Caderno, p. 16.
41 ‘CNP’.
42 Ibid.
43 ‘Começa campanha’.
44 ‘Compre melhor por menos’, Folha de São Paulo, 12 April 1973, p. 1.
45 ‘CNP’.
46 An alternative interpretation is that Delfim Netto truly believed that altering urban women's shopping habits in an advertising campaign would reduce inflation. Delfim may indeed have hoped the campaign would reduce inflation on the margins. However, because the campaign would impact only a small part of the larger problem of inflation, and given the interconnected economic, political and social constraints he faced, I argue that his primary objectives were to cast blame and divert attention.
47 Besse, Restructuring, p. 18 and Caulfield, In Defense, chapter 3.
48 Besse, Restructuring, p. 123; Caulfield, In Defense, p. 189; and Wolfe, Working Women, pp. 72–3.
49 Ibid., pp. 57–8 and see Weinstein, Social Peace, pp. 231 and 239–47 and Wolfe, Working Women, p. 140 about the Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial (National Service for Industrial Training, SENAI) and the Serviço Social da Indústria (Industrial Social Service, SESI).
50 Macedo, ‘Ordem’ and Nestler, ‘Inflation and Inequality’.
51 Ibid.
52 Alvarez, Engendering, p. 55.
53 Ibid., pp. 51–2. These new opportunities were largely not available to black and mixed-race women across the socio-economic spectrum nor to poor and working-class white women.
54 Cowan, Securing, p. 52.
55 Sarti, ‘O feminismo’, p. 37 and Alvarez, Engendering, p. 108.
56 Sarti, ‘O feminismo’, p. 37.
57 ‘Donas de casa versus preços altos’, Folha de São Paulo, 13 April 1973, p. 5.
58 ‘O que dificulta a escolha do preço’, ibid., p. 1.
59 ‘Donas de casa’.
60 ‘O que dificulta’.
61 Ibid.
62 ‘Donas de casa’.
63 ‘Afinal, quem deve combater a inflação?’ Jornal do Commercio, 15 April 1973, 1o Caderno, p. 8.
64 Hanchard, Michael George, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil 1945–1988 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 92 and 109–11Google Scholar and Eakin, Marshall C., Becoming Brazilians: Race and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 Ibid., pp. 2–5.
66 ‘Inflação, assunto também de mulheres’, Folha de São Paulo, 27 May 1973, p. 3 and ‘Simpósio sobre custo de vida começará 2a feira’, Correio da Manhã, 7 July 1973, p. 3.
67 Ibid.
68 ‘Inflação’, Correio da Manhã, 1 May 1973, p. 2.
69 ‘Simpósio’.
70 ‘Diálogo’, Tribuna da Imprensa, 19 Oct. 1973, p. 7.
71 ‘De propaganda’, Diário de Notícias, 1 May 1973, 2o Caderno, p. 1.
72 ‘Diga não à inflação’, O Jornal, 27 May 1973, p. 5.
73 ‘Crédito é o melhor instrumento para os negócios crescerem’, Diário de Notícias, 27 May 1973, p. 6.
74 ‘Lojistas em busca de apoio’, Jornal do Commercio, 8 Aug. 1973, p. 2.
75 Ibid.
76 Speech by Laerte Vieira at the National Congress, Diário da Câmara dos Deputados, 26 May 1973, p. 1868.
77 Speech by Florim Coutinho at the National Congress, ibid., 10 Aug. 1973, p. 4081.
78 Speech by Peixoto Filho at the National Congress, ibid., 22 Aug. 1973, p. 4554.
79 Speech by Amaury Müller at the National Congress, ibid., 1 June 1973, p. 1980.
80 Speech by Amaury Müller at the National Congress, ibid., 27 June 1973, p. 3418. The pro-regime ‘Brasil Grande’ advertising campaign from the late 1960s and early 1970s used the phrase ‘edge of the abyss’, and the negative reality implied by that phrase, to contrast with its positive portrayals of Brazil (Woodard, Brazil's Revolution, p. 265).
81 Speech by Fernando Lyra at the National Congress, Diário da Câmara dos Deputados, 1 Nov. 1973, pp. 8238–42, cited by Monteiro, ‘O movimento’, p. 131.
82 Skidmore, Politics, p. 139.
83 Fishlow, Albert, ‘A Tale of Two Presidents: The Political Economy of Crisis Management’, in Stepan, Alfred (ed.), Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 86–8Google Scholar.
84 Skidmore, Politics, p. 178.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid., pp. 171–3 and Dionísio Dias Carneiro Netto, ‘Crise e esperança, 1974–1980’, in Abreu (ed.), Ordem, p. 249.
87 Skidmore, Politics, pp. 180–8 and Napolitano, 1964, pp. 229–54.
88 Carneiro Netto, ‘Crise’, pp. 244–53.
89 Abreu (ed.), Ordem, p. 419.
90 Ipeadata, IGP-DI. The numbers are similar in Ipeadata, ICV-SP.
91 Abreu (ed.), Ordem, p. 421.
92 Skidmore, Politics, pp. 190–1.
93 Carneiro Netto, ‘Crise’, pp. 253–4 and Fishlow, ‘A Tale’, p. 97.
94 By the end of 1977, GDP had fallen by almost a half and industrial growth by almost two-thirds compared to 1976: Abreu (ed.), Ordem, p. 419.
95 Fico, Reinventando, p. 141 and ‘ARP explica que resposta a Frota se houvesse não seria atribuição sua’, Jornal do Brasil, 15 Oct. 1977, 1o Caderno, p. 2.
96 José Maria de Toledo Camargo, A espada virgem: os passos de um soldado (São Paulo: Ícone, 1995), p. 208 and ‘No ar, a campanha antiinflação’, Folha de São Paulo, 4 Oct. 1977, p. 16.
97 ‘ARP explica’ and ‘Sunab vai colaborar na Campanha da Pechincha’, Jornal do Brasil, 15 Sept. 1977, 1o Caderno, p. 36.
98 ‘No ar’.
99 Fico, Reinventando, p. 140.
100 Camargo, A espada, p. 205.
101 Ibid., p. 206.
102 Lúcia Helena Napoleão, ‘Pechincha’, Jornal do Commercio, 20 and 21 Nov. 1977, p. 22.
103 Ibid. and Reinaldo Cabral, ‘Apenas a mudança de uma imagem já bem desgastada?’ Folha de São Paulo, 4 Oct. 1977, p. 16.
104 Marx, Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York: International Publishers, 2015), p. 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
105 ‘Pechinchar, a arte que o governo reclama’, Folha de São Paulo, 11 Sept. 1977, p. 26.
106 Ibid.
107 ‘Jessé diz que comerciantes não darão apoio ao Governo na campanha da pechincha’, Jornal do Brasil, 17 Sept. 1977, 1o Caderno, p. 19.
108 ‘Varejista contra pechincha’, Folha de São Paulo, 15 Sept. 1977, p. 17.
109 ‘Camargo critica “deformações”’, ibid., 27 Sept. 1977, p. 6.
110 ‘No ar’.
111 ‘Inflação’, 1977, AN, Fundo Agência Nacional, BR RJANRIO EH.0.FIL, FIT.44.
112 Ibid., FIT.45.
113 Ibid., FIT.97.
114 Ibid., FIT.98.
115 Ibid., FIT.99.
116 ‘Consumidor não acredita no sucesso da pechincha’, Jornal do Brasil, 6 Oct. 1977, 1o Caderno, p. 13.
117 ‘Campanha da Pechincha não é levada a sério’, ibid., p. 1.
118 ‘Confissão de fracasso’; ‘Brincadeira’, ibid., 5 Oct. 1977, p. 12.
119 ‘A Pechincha’, ibid., 10 Oct. 1977, Caderno B, p. 10.
120 ‘Pechincha’, ibid., 5 Nov. 1977, 1o Caderno, p. 10.
121 Ibid., 11 Nov. 1977, Caderno B, p. 5.
122 ‘Defesa do consumidor: com quem está a razão?’ ibid., 4 Nov. 1977, Caderno B, p. 6.
123 ‘Invertendo’, Folha de São Paulo, 4 Dec. 1977, Caderno Folhetim, p. 23.
124 Speech by Adhemar Santilo at the National Congress, Diário da Câmara dos Deputados, 7 Oct. 1977, p. 9571.
125 Speech by Gamaliel Galvão at the National Congress, ibid.
126 Speech by Leonidas Sampaio at the National Congress, ibid., 8 Oct. 1977, p. 9638.
127 Speech by Pedro Lucena at the National Congress, ibid., 25 Oct. 1977, p. 10,311.
128 Speech by Odemir Furlan at the National Congress, ibid., 18 Nov. 1977, p. 11,515.
129 ‘“O S. Paulo” tem editorial censurado’, Jornal do Brasil, 2 Dec. 1977, 1o Caderno, p. 2.
130 Speech by Siqueira Campos at the National Congress, Diário da Câmara dos Deputados, 19 Oct. 1977, p. 10,048.
131 Speech by Gerson Camata at the National Congress, ibid., 1 Nov. 1977, p. 10,643.
132 Speech by Joir Brasileiro at the National Congress, ibid., 25 Nov. 1977, p. 12,056.
133 ‘Anti-Inflation Group Scraps WIN, a Losing Slogan’, The New York Times, 9 March 1975, p. 32.