Decifração dos Corpos na Campanha Publicitária da AMSTEL : funcionamento da visibilidade da comunidade LGBTQIAP+ como produto de consumo

Abstract

This research proposes, in the light of the theoretical assumptions of French Discourse Analysis, to analyze the advertising campaign I Am What I Am, by AMSTEL, a beer brand part of the Heineken Group, produced by HKN LAB, in partnership with the agency advertising campaign Wunderman Thompson Brasil, aired on open TV in the first half of 2021, which mobilizes LGBTQIAP+ bodies in an environment which these bodies are not commonly associated: the beer environment. It is intended to decipher the importance of the visibility of LGBTQIAP+ bodies in the advertising campaign I Am What I Am of the beer brand AMSTEL, in order to understand how these infamous bodies are presented and metonymically represent the brand ethically and aesthetically in a neoliberal context, to elucidate how a specific beer brand – here AMSTEL – represents an entire community, in this case the LGBTQIAP+ community, reflect on the effects and possible representation of this advertising campaign for its target audience and understand how the bodies chosen to be represented in this campaign work in relation to the brand selling wishes. In addition, we look for understanding whether a brand, such as AMSTEL, promotes the LGBTQIAP+ community in order to represent minorities or to engage the public injunctively to consumption through this democratic effect. Therefore, the research is part of the French Discourse Analysis research methodology, anchoring itself on concepts about subject, discourse, sexuality and History for Foucault (1978; 1995; 1999; 2001; 2004; 2006; 2008; 2010; 2010b; 2011; 2013; 2018; 2019; 2020; 2020b); deciphering, body and intericonicity for Courtine (2011; 2013); still intericonicity and audiovisualities for Milanez (2006; 2013; 2019); gender and sexuality for Butler (2018; 2019) and Preciado (2011); the LGBTQIAP+ movement for Quinalha (2018; 2022) and Trevisan (2018) and the consumer society for García Canclini (1995; 1997; 2003) and Bauman (2007; 2010). Based on this analysis, an attempt is made to understand how the presence of LGBTQIAP+ bodies work in advertising material, both for the brand and for the public it seeks to represent; how this brand represents this public and the achievements of the option to search for this specific public. As a result of this research, we can say that both the bodies that parade in the AMSTEL campaign metonymically represent the brand, and the brand represents these bodies in a neoliberal context. Still, it is possible to state that, when highlighted, the LGBTQIAP+ community serves as an object of consumption in the sense of promoting cultural diversity, something that seems to be a discourse favorable to human rights, to an identity fluidity, which promotes a kind of a “couple sale” between the product, AMSTEL beer, and the brand's ideology: freedom, the possibility of being who you want to be.