www.lionsdailynews.com friday, june 24 , 2011

f Gisele Bundchen was
the star of a Pantene
campaign by Grey
The
beautiful
south
South American producers and service providers may not be attracting
as many foreign shoots as last year, but the internal market is heating
up and local agencies are booming. Gary Smith reports
BRAZIL’s ascent into the ranks of globally significant
economic powerhouses has been much discussed,
but one fact less talked about is that President
Lula’s administration created 20 million new
consumers, which has had a galvanising effect on
the country’s advertising agencies and spot producers. Antonio
Carlos Accioly, executive producer at Margarida Filmes, is seeing
multiple changes on the home front: “Today we are working
hard for the local market and in particular for clients such as
Unilever, Procter & Gamble and its agencies,” he says. “The influence
of the strengthening of the Brazilian economy is manifest
in the growing number of multinational agencies entering the
local advertising market and the presence of new brands. We
have also noticed that Brazil is attracting more films, having
recently served as a location for large productions like The Fast
And The Furious 5 by Justin Lin, the animated film Rio by Carlos
Saldanha, Dawn Twilight by Chris Weitz, The Incredible Hulk by
Louis Leterrier among others.”
Two of Margarida’s biggest jobs of the last year were car
commercials for Citroen and Mitsubishi. “They were very challenging
because of the huge structure created to transport the
vehicles, the massive lighting equipment and certain particularities
of the locations where it was filmed. The Citroen spot was
filmed on the road linking the cities of Petropolis and Juiz de
Fora, which was entirely closed for filming, and the Mitsubishi
Paje was shot in the sand dunes of Arraial do Cabo,” Accioly says.
“Currently the challenge we face is to be able to maintain the
quality of the films, and increase our base costs while staying
active in an increasingly competitive market.”
Margarida has a complete post-production and 3D set-up
at the company’s headquarters in Sao Paulo, and more than five
affiliates across the country, including Porto Alegre, Curitiba
39
and Brasilia. According to Grey Brasil’s creative director, Guy
Costa, and executive creative director, Alexandre Scaff, Brazil is
full of opportunities: “It represents half of the economy of Latin
America. But what is really worth mentioning is that communication
is part of the engine of this economy and culture. In Brazil,
businesses and government institutions see communication as a
great ally. The Brazilian way is that we use creativity to do business
for our clients, including introducing ideas that they don’t
even know they need. This means being in tune with the busi-
“THE BRAZILIAN WAY IS THAT WE
USE CREATIVITY TO DO BUSINESS FOR
OUR CLIENTS, INCLUDING
INTRODUCING IDEAS THEY DON’T EVEN
KNOW THEY NEED”
Guy Costa, Grey Brasil
ness of our clients to identify all possible opportunities. To do so,
the agency has to be creative as a whole. This applies to both
local clients and international ones.” Grey’s biggest challenge
last year was also the source of Costa’s greatest pleasure: “The
Hair Samba integrated campaign for Pantene was a great challenge
because it was a new idea. Imagine launching a new dance
step in Brazil during the carnival! It involved creating a dedicated
samba school and an internet contest, plus the sponsorship
of major television networks in Brazil. The result was more than
5,000 people dancing the Hair Samba at the carnival in Rio,
$25m of spontaneous media and considerable growth of sales
FRIDAY, JUNE 24,2011