Airline launches campaign featuring a woman on the edge of a swimming pool; strategy harks back to images used in the past to promote vacations and tourism in Brazil
The airline Latam returned to broadcast on his X profile (ex-Twitter) a advertising piece to promote the sale of airline tickets and hotel stays with the image of a woman in a bikini by the pool. The post had been published on the platform on April 22, 2024 and until the publication of this report it had more than 10 million views.
See below the image promoted by Latam:
O Poder360 had contacted Latam the first time they used the image, in April 2024, to ask if the use of a woman in a bikini was part of the company’s strategy. Through its press office, the airline had responded that “your site (www.latam.com) became a marketplace in 2023, where tourists can organize their entire trip by booking hotels, resorts, tickets, cars, travel insurance, as well as airfare” and that this is “the reality portrayed in the advertising piece in question”. Here is the full of the note (PDF – 1 MB).
Latam had also sent images of other campaigns in its note. It stated that they were to promote the same type of product. The airline states that “broadcasts various pieces about travel and tourism, always valuing diversity and representation of people and scenarios”. There was no specific explanation, however, as to why the image portrayed in this report shows a woman in a bikini with one of her legs stretched out on the edge of a pool. Based on Latam’s response, the company considers the photo appropriate to indicate diversity.
O Poder360 contacted Latam again to ask if the company would like to comment on the new post and whether it would maintain the position it sent in April. There was no response by the time this report was published. The text will be updated if a statement is sent.
BRAZIL & TOURISM
Latam’s posts refer to an advertising strategy that was widely used in the past: showing stereotypical images of what Brazil would be like, often featuring scantily clad women to try to promote tourism.
For decades, Brazil has struggled to promote its image abroad. None of the strategies adopted by Brazilian governments have managed to effectively increase the number of tourists.
A Embratura federal state agency focused on promoting tourism, for example, has been advertising Brazil in a stereotypical way since the 1960s. The study “Brazil’s image abroad” (PDF – 3 MB), by Kelly Akemi Kajihara, from USP (University of São Paulo), compiled some of the old advertisements. See the gallery below:
The Itamaraty is studying the creation of a kind of “Brazil brand” and associating the seal with ideas of sustainability and innovation.
“Most people know Brazil for samba, Carnival, our culture, sports, for being happy, joyful, for our beaches, for the Amazon. But few know […] Brazil’s innovation potential”says Ambassador Laudemar Aguiar, Secretary of Trade Promotion and Innovation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He made this statement in an interview with Poder360 in January 2024.
Brazil received 5.91 million travelers from other countries in 2023. This is a much lower number of visitors than registered by the Louvre Museum in Paris alone: 8.9 million people last year.
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