Commentator José Eduardo Cardozo and businessman and former federal deputy Alexis Fonteyne discussed, this Monday (22), in The Great Debate (Monday to Friday, at 11pm), whether the boycott of brands increases political polarization.
The issue arose after right-wing deputies made a series of publications because of a commercial featuring actress Fernanda Torres. The boycott caused shares in Alpargatas, the company’s owner, to fall by 3% during the day.
Cardozo understands that propaganda was used as a tool by the right.
“I would say it would be comical if it weren’t tragic. Firstly, just read, or see, or listen to what was transcribed from this ad to identify that it has absolutely no association with a political vision”, he states.
“It’s complete and utter irrationality, but the far right needs this to survive, it needs to build these things to survive.” And he continued: “I keep thinking about what moment we are living in, a moment in which irrationality is called upon by blind and idiomatic passion to take positions that are absolutely senseless”, he assessed.
Fonteyne, on the other hand, assesses that it does not intensify, but exposes ideological differences.
“Another brand that made a mistake. I imagine all advertising agencies, nowadays, are very contaminated with left-wing ideologies, everyone is left-wing in these environments, wanting to run a campaign like this, clearly making an allusion to the left”, he pondered.
Fonteyne also highlighted that “what happened is a legitimate reaction from the people, from those who find it absurd to mix this type of ideological conversations, or ideological themes with a product, with the private sector. There is no way to escape these days, anyone who does this type of thing will suffer a boycott because the king is the consumer, the customer.”
