designer on the road
www.designerontheroad.com
I stayed in Sao Paulo, Brazil for a month and worked in two advertising agencies. Before I arrived there I was so excited about being in Brazil, but maybe I expected too much, and Sao Paulo was a bit disappointing for me. The city didn’t really appeal to me. It’s all about big ugly buildings and streets. There is not much to do expect drink like crazy! Sao Paulo is quite big and disorganized, and the distances are huge. People kiss a lot here in public places - I’m talking about big, long kisses! Sao Paulo has the biggest Japanese community after Japan itself. Traffic jams are a big issue here just like in Istanbul. The city has many museums and art galleries and even the streets are like an art exhibition! Brazil has a big graffiti community and you can see giant graffiti on buildings. Some of them are even part of advertising campaigns because billboards and posters on walls are forbidden in Sao Paulo. It’s a new law to prevent visual pollution.
Designer on the Road, Cagri Cankaya doesn’t find the Brazil he is looking for in Sao Paulo Sao Paulo can be a really fun place if you are with the right people. And they were right. People matter a lot. Beautiful environment or architecture doesn’t affect your life much. You can be in a shit hole but if you have awesome friends there you can have the best days of your life. I partied a lot with some Brazilian guys and we drank in the streets, in karaoke bars and at house parties...we were all wasted at the end but it was good fun! I worked on some shampoo advertisements and a new icon for Johnson & Johnson. Sadly, I didn’t have time to visit Rio, which everyone told me would provide the real Brazilian experience. I will check in from Colombia in the next issue. Till then you can follow my adventures on www.facebook.com/designerontheroad!
However, all the big advertising agencies have a presence there and the quality of work is much better than elsewhere. I was working with Havas; they put me up in a nice hotel and paid me well. Salaries in Brazil are much better than in other countries, because agencies don’t work with third party companies for planning or production - they do everything in-house. Havas was good and people were nice to me. However I couldn’t make many friends there, and was alone most of the time. I worked for the Citroen team and my first project involved pizza box advertising, which is quite popular in Brazil. I think Brazilians seeing everything as a new advertising medium. This project was for Citroen’s after sale services. We wanted to convey the idea that Citroen’s after sales services are ‘as fast and easy as ordering a pizza’! The headline said that your car will be ready by the time you finish your pizza. Two weeks later I packed my bags to move to the much bigger JWT. People there wanted to prove that www.poolmagazine.in 63