Advertising in the spotlight of Aberje-Avon’s series of debates

Ana Paula Dondon

Beauty giant Avon has organized, together with Aberje, a series of talks focused on an attractive yet polemical theme: advertising. Academic researchers, professors and market professionals met to share their vision on the ways of advertising. Paulo Nassar, president of Aberje and professor at ECA-USP (School of Communication and Arts at University of Sao Paulo) gave the opening lecture.

The first round of discussions, “The invisible frontiers of subliminal advertising”, was about myths and truths of this subconscious attempt to influence consumers. According to lecturer Leandro Leonardo Batista, a professor at ECA-USP, “this is a subject that attracts a lot of attention, but has not been validated by science”.  In his opinion, there is a much more effective way to influence people without their noticing, and it is called priming – a memory effect where a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus.

“Ethical Relations in the Consumer Industry” was the point discussed by Clotilde Perez, a professor at ECA-USP and chairwoman of ABP2 (Brazilian Researchers Association) during the second meeting. She offered a historical view and concluded: “consumption rituals are part of conscious citizenship as well as advertising. Advertising can help build social values”.

The third meeting debate was on comparative advertising. Luiz Felipe Teixeira, a Marketing Manager at General Motors Brazil, presented two successful advertising campaigns for Chevrolet.“You have to be sure it is the right product for this kind of campaign, check and recheck everything”, he said. Jaime Troiano, from Troiano Branding, added: “a company must know the meaning of a brand, why it is there. This is something that motivates employees and brings about results”.  “The main lesson of the debates was that clear intentions and strong values are vital for a better corporate communication”, said Paulo Nassar.