Joga Bonito Pelo Mundo, Guerreiro”

Music, Transmedia Advertising, and Brasilidade in the 2006 World Cup

Bibliographic Data

ID11703293
AuthorsKariann Goldschmitt, K E Goldschmitt (0000-0003-0577-9052, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume34
Issue4
Pages417-436
Publication date2011-09-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopular Music & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0300-7766 • E-ISSN: 1740-1712
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03007766.2011.601572
OpenAlexW2054492148
LanguagePT
Citations received1
References cited35

The 2006 Nike ad campaign for the World Cup, "Joga Bonito," invoked international stereotypes of Brazilian popular culture that combined music with football. Through the lenses of media formats including online video sharing websites, televised ad campaigns, and recorded music, this investigation focuses on Curumin, a São Paulo-based artist whose music provided the soundtrack to two Nike commercials. Curumin embodies the lived complexities of contemporary Brazilianness; musically, through his mixture of diverse genres; racially, through his self-presentation as a Japanese Brazilian. Using ethnographic research conducted in Brazil and the United States, this article argues that the convergence of media and advertising through social networking technologies of the internet produced a sound-driven form of sports spectatorship that connected fans with idealized notions of Brazilian football and music. This examination of the commercial packaging and reception of Curumin's eclectic sound, the Nike brand, and World Cup football demonstrates the increasingly global relevance of the relationship between music and advertising. Notes [1] The expression "joga bonito" describes the relatively fluid football style that has historically characterized the Brazilian team in World Cup tournaments. [2] Nike has continued this relationship with teams that fail to meet expectations. In the 2010 World Cup Tournament, nearly all athletes featured in their World-Cup-related ad "Write the Future" fell far below expectations, some even failing to advance beyond group play. The phenomenon has been dubbed, "The Curse of the Nike Ad." Nike's misfortunes exposed the gap between the realities of an athletic tournament and the troika of media, athletic stars, and commerce (Haddow Haddow, Douglas. "The Curse of the Nike Ad: Nike's Doomed Write the Future Advert Is a Cautionary Tale for Anyone Attempting to Bank on Star Power during the World Cup." The Guardian (UK) 5 July 2010. Print [Google Scholar]; J. Klein Klein, Jeff Z. "Curse of the World Cup Nike Commercial, Confirmed." 2010. New York Times. Web. 6 July 2010 [Google Scholar]). [3] Typically, the indigenous Brazilian alongside the European and the African are the three races at the heart of brasilidade. For the most foundational theorization of this, see Gilberto Freyre's Freyre, Gilberto. 1956. The Masters and the Slaves (Casa-Grande e Senzala): A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization, 2nd revd edn, Trans. Samuel Putnam New York: Knopf. Print [Google Scholar] The Masters and the Slaves. See also Michael Hanchard's Hanchard, Michael George. 1994. Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1945–1988, Princeton: Princeton UP. Print [Google Scholar] Orpheus and Power and Thomas Skidmore's Skidmore, Thomas E. 1993. Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, 2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1972 Durham, NC: Duke UP. Print[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] Black into White. For a relatively recent criticism on the dominance of this mythology in ethnomusicology, see Suzel Ana Reily's Reily, Suzel Ana. 2000. Introduction: Brazilian Musics, Brazilian Identities. British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 9(1): 1–10. Print[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] "Introduction: Brazilian Musics, Brazilian Identities." [4] According to interviews with accounts personnel at Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, "Chain" and "Convite" were used only in Latin America (Lucero Lucero, Celestina. Personal interview. 10 Nov. 2009 [Google Scholar]). YBMusic confirms that the label was paid for all of the Americas through this deal. Both sources confirm that the ads got considerably broader exposure through YouTube and other video websites (Tagliari 2009 Tagliari, Maurício. Personal interview. 13 Nov. 2009 [Google Scholar]). [5] For a discussion of music as a commodity, see Timothy D. Taylor Taylor, Timothy D. 2007. The Commodification of Music at the Dawn of the Era of 'Mechanical Music'. Ethnomusicology, 51(2): 281–305. Print[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], "The Commodification of Music at the Dawn of the Era of 'Mechanical Music.'" [6] "Position-taking" refers to Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice. Throughout his corpus, Bourdieu Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production, Trans. Randal Johnson New York: Columbia UP. Print [Google Scholar] describes a field of culture where social actors take positions, or roles, in that field. A position-taking is a social actor's choice to signal their position. Sometimes position-takings can be public declarations or manifestos (30–34). One could also view an ad campaign as a position-taking on the part of many of the parties involved. [7] For example, the participatory nature of weblogs and social-networking means that highly invested audiences have an easier time finding information about the artists they hear. [8] There are many authors who celebrate this promise and internet activists for copyright reform are among its most vocal proponents. See Lawrence Lessig's Lessig, Lawrence. 2009. Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, New York: Penguin. Print[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] Remix and Henry Jenkins's Jenkins, Henry, ed. 2006. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers, New York: New York UP. Print [Google Scholar] Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers. Chris Anderson's Anderson, Chris. 2008. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, 2nd edn, New York: Hyperion. Print [Google Scholar] The Long Tail implicitly relies on the democratizing assumption: more internet means more access to niche markets thereby allowing users to have more access to what they want. [9] Early into the iPod's history, there were many reports of robbery and violent crime to attain the music players. At present, it is still unsafe in certain neighborhoods to use a new iPod visibly in public (Boyer Boyer, Bill Bahng. 2007. The Curious Circumstance of the Ipod Shuffle: Or, Confessions of a Recovering Liberal Humanist. Mediascape, 3 Print [Google Scholar]). [10] Web 2.0 is such a popular concept that music futurists and scholars have begun using new monikers such as "music 2.0" and "world music 2.0" to describe the vast reorganization of the record industry where physical products are no longer the main source of revenue and where urban world music creation and circulation happens mainly through music blogs and other web 2.0-enabled environments (Leonhard Leonhard, Gerd. 2010. Music 2.0: Essays on the Future of the Music Business, Hämeenlinna, Finland: Gerd Leonhard. Print [Google Scholar]; Marshall Marshall, Wayne. "Sounds of the Wide, Wired World?." The National 29 Oct. 2010. Arts and Culture. 10–11. Web [Google Scholar]; Young and Collins Young, Sherman and Collins, Steve. 2010. A View from the Trenches of Music 2.0. Popular Music and Society, 33(3): 339–355. Print[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). [11] Jenkins Jenkins, Henry "Why Participatory Culture Is Not Web 2.0: Some Basic Definitions." 24 May 2010. Web Log. Confessions of an Aca/Fan. Web. 10 July 2010 [Google Scholar] readily clarifies that "web 2.0" is not exactly what he describes as "participatory culture." The big difference, in his theorization, is that web 2.0 engages corporate interests, while participatory culture does not have to. In "Why Participatory Culture is not Web 2.0: Some Basic Definitions," Jenkins clarified this position to emphasize the spreading of tropes through social actors rather than the more process-oriented language surrounding "memes." [12] Mark Poster and Manuel Castells separately strive to periodize new media developments. See Mark Poster Poster, Mark. 1995. The Second Media Age, Cambridge: Polity Press. Print [Google Scholar], The Second Media Age, and Manuel Castells Castells, Manuel. 2010. The Information Age, Vol. 1, The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell. Print [Google Scholar], The Rise of the Network Society (358–64). [13] Barbara Ehrenreich Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2007. Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, New York: Metropolitan Books. Print [Google Scholar] (225–46) argues that the permeation of spectator sports through the media is currently fulfilling a primal need for collective joy through ritual. [14] This privileging of heteronormative masculinity extends to the rhetoric around sports in general, with female athletes being especially vulnerable to the psychological consequences of that rhetoric (Birrell and McDonald Birrell, Susan and McDonald, Mary G., eds. 2000. Reading Sport: Critical Essays on Power and Representation, Boston, MA: Northeastern UP. Print [Google Scholar]). For an interesting exception, see Jeffrey Tobin's Tobin, Jeffrey. 2000. "A Question of Balls: The Sexual Politics of Argentine Soccer". In Decomposition: Post-Disciplinary Performance, Edited by: Case, Sue-Ellen, Brett, Philip and Leigh Foster, Susan. 111–134. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Print[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] "A Question of Balls" about the shifting rhetoric of gay sex in Argentinian soccer depending on class. [15] Ironically, Ronaldinho did not play for Brazil in the 2010 World Cup, underscoring the vast difference between the fantasy component of sports branding and the realities of team selection. [16] In recent years, some musicians in the tecnobrega subgenre have used the network of CD pirates to sell copies of their CDs as promotional material (Lemos and Castro Lemos, Ronaldo and Castro, Oona. 2008. Tecnobrega: O Pará Reinventando O Negócio Da Música, Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano Editora. Print [Google Scholar]). [17] As Felippe Llerena Llerena, Felippe. Personal interview. 7 June 2010 [Google Scholar], the executive director of iMúsica, tells it, the previous market for street corner CD-Rs is now the main market for the legal and highly profitable true-tone downloads over mobile phones. [18] For further elaboration on why this happened, Pardue (366–70) describes references to football in everyday speech in Brazil. [19] Other slang phrases in the song reference sexual desire and Rua 25 de Março, a street in São Paulo known for selling items at a bargain. [20] One should note that discourses surrounding football in England are especially tinged with nationalism due to that country's status as the sport's origin. [21] A paulistano is a person from the city of São Paulo. [22] Lesser describes the strategic exoticism among Japanese roles in pornographic comedic films. Readers of the larger body of postcolonial theory might recognize this as a version of mimesis or strategic essentialism

Advertising · Art · Football · Media studies · Nike · Popular music · Sociology · Visual arts · Asian Culture and Media Studies · History · Music History and Culture · Sports, Gender, and Society

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