Marketing e diversidade: uma análise dos argumentos para o engajamento das marcas nas lutas identitárias na contemporaneidade

Abstract

Diversity has become one of the main guiding elements of contemporary advertising narratives, both in Brazil and around the world. Black people, indigenous people, the elderly, people with physical disabilities, obese bodies, women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and other identities, historically excluded and marginalized, gained visibility or began to occupy new subject positions in brand communication. We thus begin to witness the issue of identity politics being incorporated, in an increasingly intense and frequent way, by the market as a strategy to bring brands and consumers closer together. This thesis seeks to understand this transformation in advertising communication, which abandons a politically neutral position and assumes political activism, especially in favor of identity causes. To achieve this objective, the central point of our research was the documentary study, based on the rhetorical analysis of texts from publications (report, manual and magazine) that guide marketing and advertising professionals to focus on diversity. In these texts, we seek to find the main justifications – explicit or implicit – for brands’ adherence to the struggles of minority groups for greater representation. We start from the premise that the usual explanation of the process of politicization of brands as a response to consumer appeals is a simplistic way of understanding the phenomenon, which disregards broader changes within the capitalist system, in the sociocultural panorama and in the marketing communication ecosystem. The theoretical review, which constitutes the first part of this thesis, made it possible to deepen our analysis, by articulating the approach of thinkers from different areas such as Sociology, Economy, Political Science, Anthropology of Consumption and Communication Studies. We highlight the contribution of Stuart Hall's theories to our critical perspective. With this thesis, we hope to contribute especially to the field of studies in Advertising and Marketing.