"Leaderless since its figurehead was jailed for attempting a coup, Brazil's far right has found a new nemesis: the iconic flip-flop brand Havaianas, which has been cancelled by Jair Bolsonaro's supporters over a television advert. The controversy stems from the actor Fernanda Torres the star of I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film that won an Oscar for best international feature saying in the ad that she hoped audiences would not start 2026 on the right foot, but with both feet."
"One of the former president's sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro whose mandate was recently revoked after he abandoned his post as a congressman and moved to the US to lobby Trump to retaliate against Brazil over his father's trial recorded a video in which he throws a pair of Havaianas into a bin. I thought this here was a national symbol, he said, pointing to the small Brazilian flag that is a trademark of the sandals. But I was mistaken."
"I'll tell the marketing people [at Havaianas] to get advice from the Budweiser marketing department here in the US, which also lost touch with reality and took a billion-dollar loss, said the former congressman, referring to the backlash Bud Light faced after running an advert featuring the transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, before later being forgiven by Trump."
Bolsonaro supporters initiated a boycott of Havaianas after an advert featured actor Fernanda Torres saying she hoped audiences would start 2026 not on the right foot, but with both feet. The response framed the advert as a left-wing provocation and prompted public denunciations, including a video of Eduardo Bolsonaro discarding a pair of Havaianas. The boycott reportedly erased about $20m of the company's market value on its first day. Comparisons were made to earlier US consumer backlash campaigns. Neither the actress nor the brand issued a public comment at the time.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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