What is inside the egg?

Picture from Cirque du Soleil website

The Cirque du Soleil is currently presenting his brand new show at the Old Port of Montreal. What is new, besides the creativity, spectacular moves, wonderful visuals, WOWs by the public and all the joy?

It is the first show of the Cirque that is directed by a woman! And guess what? She is Brazilian!
Yes! Deborah Colker, a choreographer from Rio, brings her talent to all Cirque fans in the show Ovo (egg in Portuguese). Colker is amazing. I first heard about her and got to know her talent in 2000 when I had the opportunity to create advertising material to promote her show “Casa” in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

To produce Ovo, she counts on the extraordinary work of two other Brazilians: Gringo Cardia in the scenario design and Berna Ceppas in the musical direction. Bravo!
Canadian critics welcomed Ovo, which tells the love story of a ladybug and a mosquito in the insects world full of life, movement, emotions. It brings the biodiversity and environmental issue to the stage. The diversity is also present in the music, with other popular Brazilian rhythms besides samba, including forró.

In the Cirque du Soleil website, they state:

“When a mysterious egg appears in their midst, the insects are awestruck and intensely curious about this iconic object that represents the enigma and cycles of their lives.”

I’m also curious to crack this egg and see what is inside, what surprises await for me. Have a taste of it here.

Ovo is already scheduled to be played in Toronto, San Francisco and New York. It will be on stage for the next 15 years. Let’s wait the bugs bring this fantastic egg to Brazil.

“There is no marketing that sustains a bluff.”

Even after 15 years of his death, Ayrton Senna is still one of the most admirable people by Brazilians. The most surprising fact is that he is the greatest sports idol for young people between 15-19 years old. The research was made by IBOPE and Troiano Brand Consultancy. Margareth Goldemberg, Executive Director of Ayrton Senna Institute, stated: “Ayrton became a transgenerational phenomenon. These young people didn’t see him in activity. They knew about him because their parents told them.”

Virage Senna at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada

Senna is still very popular around the world and in Canada it is no exception. At Emporium F1, which is one of the specialized motor racing stores of Montreal, Senna’s Lotus and McLaren’s model cars were rare and used to be sold very quickly. They were always the most expensive, comparable to the model cars of Gilles Villeneuve, the local hero. Two racing legends, two tragic deaths. In 3 Montreal F1 Grand Prix I have been in the past years, many people asked me to take pictures with my Brazilian flag, on which is written SENNA FOREVER.

What is the secret behind Senna’s myth image? His horrible death when he was still young and at the top of his career? His close relationship with Globo, the leading Brazilian TV group? What about his innumerous fans in Japan, were they crazy about him just because of Honda’s promotional campaigns? Yes, all those elements collaborated to improve his good image but as Ayrton once said:

“There is no marketing that sustains a bluff.”

His talent, his charisma, his passion, his commitment with his work, his efficiency and the fact that he delivered great results were the reasons of his success. And they are still the reasons of Senna’s brand success.

A fan hommage to Senna in 1994, at Eau Rouge turn, Spa-francorchamps Circuit, Belgium

Who Knows The Boy From Ipanema?

For my surprise I was introduced a few days ago to The Boy From Ipanema by a Canadian, the renowned jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall. I didn`t know that the most famous Brazilian song – The Girl From Ipanema – has a version for women to sing about a handsome Brazilian boy and its swing.

My surprise was even bigger when I looked for the title on Youtube and found Ella Fitzgerald singing it! Krall recorded this classic of Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes for her new album, Quiet Nights, which is the English title of another Brazilian tune, Corcovado. She even took a big risk singing Este Seu Olhar (also by Jobim) in Portuguese, which was criticized by some Brazilian specialized media. Despite that – and, by the way, I don`t really appreciated most of the critics, like or dislike art is something that I believe is very particular - I was very glad to know that a contemporaneous top jazz artist in the world did this homage to Brazilian music. And I really liked the result.

A DVD is about to be released next month with the show she presented in November of last year in Rio to celebrate the 50 years of Bossa Nova. If you want to have a taste of her breathy and beautiful vocal and astonishing talent on the piano in this new work, here we go:



Enjoy it and leave a comment about her performance, also if you had the chance to be at her new show.

GIANT PIRANHA!

It seems that we will have a movie about the Pantanal, made by Giros, a company from Rio, in partnership with IMC Brasil, which represents IMAX in Brazil. Pantanal LLC, a company based in the US that created the project, would give the opportunity to work in the production to other Brazilian companies, besides Giros; and the opportunity to local sponsors to get involved. This would be done with resources from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports exhibitions in many museums and in scientific centers, especially in the US and Canada.

The Pantanal region

Many people around the world will have the opportunity to learn more about another place of Brazil that they have never heard about. Pantanal is as exotic and beautiful as the Brazilian beaches and the Amazonia jungle. I’m looking forward to watch the beauties (and dangers!) from the west center of Brazil here in North America. And no, it is going to be the horror (maybe a trash-Jaws-movie-version???) of the poster above.

Brazilian appeal

In the Brandchannel's 2009 Brandjunkie Awards, Brazil got the 5th place in the country category. The award refers to 2008. The question was: Which nation brand improved its appeal the most?

The US with Obama is the winner, with 33.4% of the votes, followed by China (11.8%) that held The Olympic Games; India and its Slumdog Millionaire (10.1%), and Australia (4.1%). Brazil had 3.4%. 4,310 people around the world that are in the Brandchannel community voted in the 2009 awards’ edition.

New values are being added to the brand Brazil and getting recognition. The samba-carnival image is now in company with cultural richness and business opportunities.

It’s good to know that the world is noticing more Brazil and in a better way. It’s interesting to observe that India and Australia do advertising campaigns promoting them overseas. Here in Canada we don’t see anything comparable to this from Brazil, even to promote tourism.
Brazil is doing well but its government could try harder, improving its support to Brazilian cultural events in Canada and to the exportation of products as well.

IMAX: big screen, big revenues

The IMAX theatre in the Bourbon Shopping
Picture: Aline Arruda / Divulgação.
Source: ilustradanocinema.folha.blog.uol.com.br




After waiting almost 5 years since the announcement, Brazil has finally a movie theatre with IMAX screen in São Paulo, which is open since January of this year. The next city to get this Canadian technology is Curitiba, which was supposed to be the first one... disregarding an old plan of having IMAX in that marketing illusion called Terra Encantada, an entertainment park in Rio. (Please don’t talk about this with some ESPM marketing professors from Rio. They don’t have good memories of investing in popcorn for that park). Anyway...

IMAX has been traditionally used for educational and scientific movies. But management people from Bourbon, the shopping center in São Paulo that got the giant screen, believe that the increasing number of blockbusters that can be screened in IMAX will help to pay them back. They invested about US$ 2.7 million in this theatre. Based on this, they are re-screening the last Batman movie, The Dark Knight. To support the idea, we can take a look at the release of the film Watchmen in the beginning of this month (text from Big Movie Zone blog):


“The IMAX release contributed $5.4 million of the $55 million that the film grossed at the domestic box office, on a total of 124 North American IMAX screens this weekend. The picture posted a domestic IMAX per screen average of $43,863. Internationally, the picture generated an estimated $727,000 from 29 IMAX screens. The film’s worldwide IMAX opening total was $6.2 million.

‘We’re very happy with the overall performance of the film, and the strong IMAX results show that the IMAX brand is clearly resonating with Watchmen fans,’ said Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures.”

I wish a big success for IMAX in Brazil; it is really an amazing experience. I hope the initial plans to have it in at least another 4 Brazilian cities will be confirmed... and that my beloved Belo Horizonte will get one.


An IMAX camera at the Montreal Science Center

Source: Wikipedia Commons

Would you like a chocolate?

Nothing better than a tasty subject to start this blog. Chocolate is even better! Since Easter is coming, what about a piece of good chocolate? It has been proven that chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa is good for the heart, not just for romantic purposes but also for your health. Chocolate is healthy for the Brazilian economy as well, especially because of cocoa. It could be better however. Cocoa is a big business for Brazil, which is the 5th largest producer in the world of this commodity, behind Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Nigeria. In 1993/94 Brazil had 12% of the world production but in 2003/04 its share was only about 4.5% (155 K tons). Brazil is also the 4th largest chocolate producer in the world when considering all kinds of chocolate products.

90% of the Brazilian production is consumed domestically and exportation (in tons and $) has been dropping since 2005. You can see the stats (Estatísticas) at ABICAB. Would these two facts be the reasons why it’s so hard to find a Brazilian chocolate brand in the Quebec market and possibly in Canada? For instance, in Montreal, I only found the little chocolate bars (called bombons in Brazil) in a Brazilian coffee shop. At the same time, some chocolate manufacturers are exploiting the image of Brazilian cacao quality and taste. Sarotti, a German company, sells its No. 1 Brazil (in the picture above), a premium dark chocolate, in many grocery stores, drugstores and convenience stores.

The industry is going premium; and bio, organic and fair trade products are new trends as well. Since being from Brazil is perceived as a special, positive attribute, why then is there almost no “Made in Brazil” chocolate here, in a $ 2 billion market? According to the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), in 2005 Canada was in 14th place in chocolate consumption (3.9 Kg per person), behind 11 European countries, the US and Australia.

Yes, exportation and distribution represent a huge cost. In addition, the Brazilian cacao production has been facing big problems, which also increases its price for the local chocolate manufacturers. In this scenario, competing against giants such as - Nestlé, Hershey’s, Cadbury, Lindt - which are all offering more premium products and have huge promotional power, is very risky. What about offering high quality and exotic flavours, such as chocolate with tropical fruits? For instance, Lindt offers blends such as chocolate with Sea Salt and Chili. But has someone tried to offer that up here? How did the business go or how is it going? If you have any news about this, please tell me. If you are just a chocoholic like me, you certainly would love to try delicious Brazilian chocolate such as Fany and the ones from Gramado.