Bye-bye sexy ads

2003-09-19 11:32

Brazil - Sexy advertisements with scantily clad models luring consumers to drink beer, whisky or any other alcoholic beverage are on the way out in Brazil - if the brewers and ad agencies co-operate with a ban.

New guidelines handed down last week by Brazil's National Advertising Regulatory Council, better known by its initials CONAR, ban all erotic content from television, newspapers, magazines or radio ads for alcoholic beverages.

Under the new guidelines, expected to go into effect in 90 days, advertisements will no longer be able to depict models in string bikinis cradling bottles of ice-cold beer, or smiling, sultry-looking women sipping draft beer in bars.

While the new guidelines are voluntary, brewers, advertising agencies and the media "will abide by them, just as other norms we have drawn up in the past have always been obeyed," Alvaro Moura, one of CONAR's legal advisers, said on Thursday.

The new rules also prohibit the use of animation or any other techniques that could entice minors to drink alcohol.

AmBev, Brazil's largest brewer and its competitors Kaiser and Schincariol, would not comment on the new guidelines because they were still analysing them.

Moura said CONAR elaborated the new norms in an attempt to "defuse the impact of tough restrictive legislation being prepared in Congress", which could prohibit alcoholic beverage ads altogether.

- AP