Havaianas Launches A Photo Contest To Win A Free Pair

Havaianas Launches Facebook Photo Contest

Havaianas, the sandal brand that has become synonymous with easygoing Brazilian culture, and a staple for the beach rats of Rio de Janeiro, has launched a photo contest today on their facebook page. Upload your best picture of a sunset, and each week the five best pictures will win a pair of Havaianas. The first winner will be announced on Friday.

Brazilian Fashion: Havaianas’ Rise To Stardom

great marketing ideas - photo from the "havaianas thong challenge of 2009" in australia

You have to hand it to Havaianas for their genius marketing strategies. The international boom of the Brazilian brand is no coincidence. Its parent company, Alpargatas, has implemented numerous marketing strategies in past years. Since 2003 the brand has been a part of the Academy Awards, with exclusive sandal models given to the nominees.  In 2009, the company launched a campaign in European media promoting the product as a symbol for what it means to be Brazilian. It also made the sandals available at 700 Gap stores, where they could be decorated with pins and other accessories. Customization of Havaianas was also a big hit during New York Fashion Week. Just this week a Havaianas vending machine was installed in a shopping mall in Sydney, Australia.

havaianas vending machine

Alpargatas has truly branded these rubber flip-flops as the “sandal of brazil,” they have even gotten away with making a flip-flop trendy, even glamorous. And they aren’t doing too bad for themselves…

Havaianas sandal designed by Naomi Campbell

Peixe Urbano – Brazil’s Answer For Groupon-like Daily Deals

“Peixe Urbano” – Brazil’s Answer To Online Daily Deals

Peixe Urbano, a Rio-based Groupon clone, is doing very nicely indeed by tailoring its service precisely to a brazilian audience and offering daily deals to brazil’s nearly 70 million Internet users.

Brazil has its own version of Groupon, but Peixe Urbano (which means “urban fish” in portuguese) came onto the scene afterwords, and has done much better in the brazilian market for deal-of-the-day websites (in portuguese, the concept is referred to as “compra coletiva.”) In many markets, Groupon is a solid number two player at best, as is the case in Brazil. So even though Peixe Urbano is just a groupon clone, it has been much more successful…

When it comes to the overall revenue obtained by each side, PeixeUrbano has mananged to grow 5.87% when compared to the previous month and raised R$67,031,631 (USD38,878,345.98) in the three largest Brazilian markets alone. Groupon, on the other hand, lost 0.62% in overall revenue in August and raised R$16,641,145 (USD9,651,864.1) in the same markets.

Why Has Peixe Urbano Had More Success in The Brazilian Market Than Groupon?

Why is Peixe Urbano doing better than Groupon in Brazil? One theory is that Peixe Urbano is targeting the types of deals that will hook in the Brazilian market. For example, Peixe Urbano does a lots of happy hour deals, things that target a more spontaneous crowd. Brazilians tend to favor spontaneous activities as opposed to discounts or gift cards that expire after 6 months or a year, so Peixe Urbano’s deals are typically more time-sensitive. Also, Brazilians tend to be less excited about sharing coupons and sales with their friends, so Peixe Urbano is positioning itself as a site to discover cool hidden gems in your city, with the added bonus of saving some money in the process. Peixe Urbano’s slogan is “peixe urbano – exploring your city.”

Peixe Urbano…

peixe urbano

…Vs. Groupon Brazil

Also, it probably didn’t help that when Groupon first launched in Brazil (originally called “Clube Urbano”), its tactics were deceitful. The site was loaded with fake deals, according to TechCrunch, who confirmed that Groupon was advertising deals for venues and locations that didn’t really exist. Shady marketing, Groupon.

groupon brazil - groupon.com.br

So if you are traveling to brazil in search of good deals, Peixe Urbano might worth checkingout.

Science News: New Monkey Species Discovered in the Amazon

New Monkey Species Discovered in the Amazon

Wow, a lot of new species from Brazil have been in the news recently. Here’s an article from Guardian about the discovery of a new type of titi monkey, found in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil.

Monkey belonging to the Callicebus genus found in Mato Grosso on an expedition backed by WWF-Brazil

Via GuardianUK…

“A monkey sporting a ginger beard and matching fiery red tail, discovered in a threatened region of the Brazilian Amazon, is believed to be a species new to science.

The primate was found in relatively untouched pockets of forest in Mato Grosso, the region that has been worst-affected by illegal deforestation and land conflicts…

The expedition, backed by conservation group WWF, also found probable new fish and plant species, all of which are now being studied.”

Handyman in Brazil Discovers a New Flower Species That Plants Its Own Seeds

Amateur Botanists in Brazil Discover a Flower That Plants Its Own Seeds

This is very cool….One more awesome thing that someone discovered in Bahia. Via ScienceDaily…

The newly discovered Spigelia genuflexa has pink and white star-shaped blossoms...it was identified as a new species after this picture was uploaded to flickr

A new plant species that buries its seeds – the first in its family – was discovered in the Atlantic forest of Bahia, Brazil, by an international team of amateur and professional scientists.

José Carlos Mendes Santos (a.k.a. Louro) is a handyman in rural northeastern Bahia, Brazil – one of the areas of the world with the highest biodiversity. Two years ago, he found a tiny, inch-high plant with white-and-pink flowers in the backyards of the off-the-grid house of amateur botanist and local plant collector Alex Popovkin.

Thanks to solar power and a satellite connection, Popovkin had access to the Internet, and as was his habit, he uploaded some photographs of the plant to Flickr and contacted several taxonomic experts around the globe. The family (strychnine family, or Loganiaceae) and genus (Spigelia) of the plant were soon established, with a suggestion from a Brazilian botanist that it might be a new species.

After Getting High At Costume Party, Law Student in Rio Dressed As BOPE Officer Steals A Bus & Causes 3 Accidents

After Getting High At Costume Party, Law Student in Rio Dressed As BOPE Officer Steals A Bus & Causes 3 Accidents

Law student Pedro Henrique Garcia de Souza, 24, from Rio stole a bus this morning and managed to hit 18 cars before getting arrested. One person was injured.

Here’s part of the article from G1:

“Eu não sequestrei o ônibus, não. Não tinha ninguém dentro”, disse o jovem de 24 anos preso após roubar um ônibus neste domingo (18) no Terminal Alvorada, na Barra da Tijuca, na Zona Oeste do Rio de Janeiro, e provocar uma série de acidentes na Zona Sul. “Eu saí de uma festa, realmente fiz errado”, admitiu o jovem, que afirmou ser estudante de direito.

“I didn’t hijack the bus. There was no one inside” says the student in his defense….LOL……and then he goes on to claim that he was really the victim in this situation, as he was “beaten by the police” after they arrested him (just to remind you, this is a law student), which the PM of course deny:

O jovem afirmou ainda ter sido vítima de agressões de policiais ao se entregar. “Olha a minha cara. Quando eles mandaram parar, eu parei, olha só a minha cara, olha o que eles fizeram comigo. Eu tô errado, mas eles tão mais porque me espancaram, eu fui espancado pela PM”, disse o preso, ainda dentro da viatura policial. Procurada pelo G1, a assessoria da Polícia Militar nega que agentes tenham agredido o rapaz. De acordo com a PM, o preso está machucado devido à sequência de colisões do ônibus.

Click Here to read the rest…

JetBlue Partners With TAM To Go Deeper into Brazil…

JetBlue, Partnered With Tam, Will Fly To 45 Cities Across Brazil

This partnership will connect travelers to Brazil via New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Orlando International Airport.

From Forbes…

“JetBlue Airways, the 6th largest passenger carrier in the U.S. based on revenue passenger miles, recently announced an interline partnership with TAM Airlines, the largest airline in Brazil under which it will be able to connect its travelers to 45 cities across Brazil and other international destinations covered by TAM in South America.”

“…JetBlue customers will be able to purchase a single e-ticket itinerary, combining flights on both carriers’ networks giving them the ease of one-stop ticketing and baggage check-in along with an enhanced flying experience through TAM’s modern airplanes and high quality services.“

The Rise Of Online Movie Streaming in Brazil – Netflix & Its Brazilian Competition

The Rise Of Netflix-Like Services For Online Movie Streaming In Brazil

It seems that Netflix, which was unleashed this month in Brazil, is facing some trouble adapting to the prehistoric nature of Brazil’s Broadband internet. The last time I checked, the internet in my family’s house Brazil was still dial-up, they can’t even use the computer and the landline phone at the same time…it’s one or the other. The last time I was there, I tried to show people videos on youtube a couple of times, and the way that worked was by going to the video on youtube, leaving it open on the screen for about half an hour, and then returning to it to watch only when it was fully loaded. I also got berated a few times for being on the internet during the day, because in Brazil, you get charged when you surf online during the daytime (its cheaper at night).

…And these are only some of the horrors plaguing online Brazilians in a country where the infrastructure isn’t advancing fast enough to accommodate services like Netflix that are looking to supply one of the worlds largest and most active contingents of internet users with online video streaming.

So Is The Internet in Brazil Fast Enough?…

…No. Netflix has only recently arrived in Brazil and is offering Brazilians the chance to watch movies over the internet. But it has already been reported (for example, here, in this article by Folha,) that Netflix streaming in HD is choking on Brazilian broadband (and that’s on broadband!). Not everyone in Brazil has broadband…Only 20 percent of Brazil’s 42 million Internet users have a connection speed above 500 kilobytes per second, where a speed of around 800 kilobytes per second is the minimum required to stream movies online.

Netflix Unveils Latin America Service In Brazil

From HuffPost….

Broadband internet reaches a far smaller percentage of homes in Latin America than in the United States, and speeds are slower. Piracy of movies is among the most widespread on the planet, meaning many consumers can pick up a DVD or CD of the latest films for less than a dollar. Also, Netflix has little brand recognition in the region, and in the case of Brazil it already faces a homegrown competitor.

“This just won’t work in Ecuador or Costa Rica or even Mexico as it has in the U.S.,” said analyst Michael Pachter of Webbush Securities. “It’s going to depend on how many households have broadband access and what the quality of the content will be like.”

Only 20 percent of Brazil’s 42 million Internet users have a connection speed above 500 kilobytes per second, according to a May report from Ibope Nielsen Online. A speed of around 800 kilobytes per second is the minimum required to stream movies online.

Netflix subscribers across the region will be able to watch TV shows and movies streamed on a wide range of gadgets. Foreign and domestic content will be offered in Brazil, with some titles dubbed in Portuguese, Spanish or English, and people will also be able to opt for subtitling.

The service in Brazil will cost 14.99 reals per month (about $9), and new subscribers will get the first month for free.

(R$ 15 !?…in my opinion, that’s a little expensive for Brazil)

Who Are Netflix’s Competitors in Brazil?

There are a few Brazilian competitors to Netflix: NetMovies, Terra TV Video Store, Saraiva Digital and Muu. Below is a good comparison of the online streaming competition in Brazil. It’s in Portuguese, so if you need help with the terminology, click Here (and scroll all the way down) for some good Portuguese tech vocab.

Map Compares Brazilian State Economies To Countries

Map Compares Brazilian States To Countries

The map below presents country equivalents for every state in Brazil in terms of GDP (gross domestic product), GDP per person and population. It throws up some curiosities: who knew that Alagoas, a state in the north-east that is currently more famous for its murder rate than for its magnificent beaches, has the same GDP per person as China? It also suggests that even the comparatively rich states in the south and south-east have some way to go before they can be compared with wealthy places in the northern hemisphere. The gauchos of Rio Grande do Sul will not necessarily be delighted to learn that GDP per person in their state is close to that of Gabon.

The map from Economist Magazine reveals that:

• São Paulo’s Gross Domestic Product and GDP per capita could be compared to Poland’s; while its population is similar (numerically) to Argentina’s
• Rio’s GDP can be compared to Singapore’s, its GDP per capita, to Russia’s., and its population to Kazakstan.
• Alagoas, the poorest state, according to the latest official statistics, has the GDP of Afghanistan, the GDP per capita of China and the population of Albania.
• Rio Grande do Sul, generally considered a very rich state, has the GDP per person of…Gabon.

Technology News: Facebook Overtakes Google’s Orkut in Brazil

Facebook Overtakes Orkut in Brazil

Is this the beginning of the end for Orkut in Brazil?…

…Looks like it. I closed my Orkut account about a year and a half ago because I was finding that all of my Brazilian friends were flooding to set up facebook accounts, making it unnecessary for me to use both social networks to keep in touch with Brazilian friends and family. (Plus, Orkut just started getting weird after Facebook came out, it started nervously updating all the time to keep up with the fb look, which I think hurt it in the end because it just got creepily similar and lost its simplistic charm. The only unique thing that Orkut may have had going for it in the end was your ability to see who looks at your profile the way that linkedin does….)

In his blog post at Forbes, Ricardo Geromel confirms that last month, Facebook overtook Orkut for most number of users in Brazil for the first time. An Ibope Nielsen survey shows that Facebook’s 30.9 million users (almost 69% of internet users) trumped Orkut’s 29 million on the strength of adding 2.1 million users in August to Orkut’s flat to negative growth.

Geromel points out two considerations:

First, although Ibope Nielsen Online survey is the reference for ranking of Brazilian web audience, it measures the amount of Internet users accessing from work and home. Regrettably, Internet cafes and phone access are not counted. Orkut would probably have more advantage in the first case and Facebook on the second. Second,the survey doesn’t reveal how much time Brazilians spent in each social platform. I strongly believe Brazilians are already spending more time on Facebook than on Orkut.

Noted. But the actual total user numbers don’t really matter at this point. The important numbers are growth rates. And while Facebook is on a significant uptick, Orkut is declining. So even if it’s too close to call, it won’t be by Christmas. Brazilians are still joining Facebook, building their network and adding new friends.

orkut vs. facebook in numbers

 

Orkut…weird name for a social network right? The website is actually named after its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten.

The Culture of Plastic Surgery in Brazil

The Culture of Plastic Surgery Among Rio’s Lower Classes

 

 

A ‘Necessary Vanity’

Alexander Edmonds, an anthropologist studied the culture of plastic surgery among Rio’s lower classes and found a desire for both equity and self-esteem:

I first met Ester through her former employer, a successful plastic surgeon, for whom she’d worked as his personal cook.  Ester lived nearby to the surgeon in Vidigal, a favela flanking the brilliant white sand beach of Leblon.  One day after she’d prepared dinner for his family she shyly told him in private, “Doutor, I want to put in silicone.”

After reading up on prosthetic materials in an Internet café, she’d settled on a midcost model of breast implant (1,500 real, or about $900), size (175 cm) and shape (natural), and convinced the doctor in a minute that she was a good candidate.  Hesitant to perform the surgery on his domestic employee, he referred her to a young resident in Pitanguy’s clinic.

Ester left school at 14 to work beside her mother as a maid and now has two young kids.  While taking night classes to get her high school diploma, she dreamed of “working with numbers.”  Job prospects were grim though, and she said she’d take anything, even “working for a family” (a euphemism for domestic service).  I asked her why she wanted to have the surgery.  “I didn’t put in an implant to exhibit myself, but to feel better. It wasn’t a simple vanity, but a  … necessary vanity.  Surgery improves a woman’s auto-estima.”

Edmonds reveals what this search for self-esteem through physical alteration says about the culture of Brazil’s therapeutic landscape:

Psychoanalysis and plastic surgery, both once maverick medical specialties, overlapped closely in their historical development.  While the “talking cure” treated bodily complaints via the mind, plastic surgery healed mental suffering via the body.  Historian Sander Gilman called plastic surgery “psychoanalysis in reverse.”  In Brazil, as in Argentina, psychoanalysis enjoyed extraordinary popularity among wealthier Brazilians. But many veterans of Freudian or Lacananian therapy have supplemented or supplanted it with plástica. For the patients at public hospitals, psychoanalysis had never been “an option,” a psychologist who worked in Pitanguy’s clinic told me. Echoing the words of the mischievous Carnival designer, she explained, “The poor prefer surgery.”

Read The Rest Here, Via NYT…