Embratur, the official Brazilian Tourism Institute, just presented a new revamped logo, that immediately generated polemics in the local media and on the internet due to the tagline Visit and love us, considered ambiguous by many. It conveys an indirect message to sex tourism that upset Brazilians as much as the cliches around carnival and soccer.
The new logotype has the scope of empathizing the Brazilian flag with the intention of a welcoming tone of voice, according to Embratur representatives. From a grammatical standpoint Visit and love us, probably sounds naive for the native English speaker: Visit and fall in love would be more appropriate.
Believe it or not, a Brazilian you-tuber who tweeted that Visit and Love Us it stands for Visit and Love the United States, which makes absolutely no sense! Not considering the non-sense, he should study a bit more of English grammar that the sentence to be about the United States should have been Visit and Love the US.
Jokes apart, let me give here more context to the polemic triggered by the new logo. A lot of Brazilian people are likely to get offended by any content associating the country to the carnival, naked women, and sex tourism, also because, there were some really bad ads campaigns from the 1960’s to the 1990’s, promoting the country as a sex destination.
80% of the Brazilian population is made of conservative Christians, they are easy going if you respect the Judeo-Christian values and leave your private life within your household walls. Being a destination marketer or a tourism professional, how would you react if your country had such a negative stereotype? What type of campaign could wipe out the cliches?
As a Brazilian myself, one thing I will never forget was my first trip to Zurich, Switzerland, when walking at night in the central area there were a clear pattern: red light bars signs alla reading names like Copacabana, Ipanema, and Salvador! Just an example of how far a bad cliched campaign can go. Remember that memories and disinformation are hard to erase regardless if they are true or not.
This article has been written by André Fernandes, Business Developer at Creativa. Proud Brazilian from the state of Santa Catarina.