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TENDÊNCIAS

CONSUMERISM AND

CONSUMERS IN BRAZIL

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RAE Light • v. 7 • n. 2 • p. 8-11 • Abr./Jun. 2000

Gisela B. Taschner

This text addresses the issue ofconsumerism and some of its impactson consumer culture and behavior,the structure of local markets, and therelationship between corporationsand customers, in the case of Brazil.

It draws on some questionsarisen from a comparative study onconsumerism in Brazil, the USA andsome Western European countries,carried out by the author previously(Taschner, 1995) and which is beingupdated presently.

THE ISSUE OF CONSUMERPROTECTION

The first steps toward consumerprotection can be tracked back to theXIX century at least in the Westernworld. In some countries, beginningin society, in others within the state,the field of consumer protectiondeveloped during the first half of theXX century and consumerismreached its peak during the mid-1960s in the USA, and in the early

1970s in European countries likeFrance and Great Britain. After that,consumers were already rather wellprotected from a legal point of view;and I guess one could say that theirrights were enforced by and largeand came to be taken for granted inthose countries. Thus consumerismceased to be a national issue.Globalization brought up theeconomic blocks and the need toharmonize norms of partner-countries. And consumers strengthcame to be used on behalf of othersocial quests.

The development of consumerprotection as a question is linkedwith the consolidation of capitalistmass production and consumption.

The geographical extension ofthe markets and the separationbetween the production and salesdepartments disclosed newproblems related to packaging andto the use of conservers so that theproducts – perishable products inparticular – should not deteriorate;

also there is the question ofmisleading packages. Thedepersonalization of relationships insales and purchase, and anunprecedented development ofadvertising left room for misleadingmessages and difficulties ofcommunication; one might findnobody to complain to; perhaps thequestion of ethical responsibilityhad to be seen differently too. Thecomplexity of use and the risksinvolved in products generatedby an increasingly sophisticatedtechnology entailed problems ofsafety and handling difficulties; therelatively higher cost of durablegoods created expectations ofdurability which might not befulfilled – these are some of theaspects connected with thedevelopment of consumersproblems in mass production andmass consumption societies.

There are differences betweendifferent countries in the matter ofconsumer protection. Thus, in the

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First World, when concern with theconsumer began to make itself felt,this happened in countries whichhad previously solved (in a better orworse manner, according to country)a series of social problems: absolutepoverty, public health, basiceducation. These were affluentsocieties, with a broad spectrum ofguaranteed social rights, a deeplyrooted tradition of citizenship (inspite of the fact that the conceptcould be understood in differentways by each country), and apopulation which, for the most part,had no lack of the basic necessitiesfor survival. During the peak ofconsumerism there, in the mid-1960s and early 1970s (before the oilshock), the unemployment andforeign immigrants’ situation had notyet assumed the problematic naturethey would later (Taschner, 1995).

It should also be noticed that byand large consumerism rose togetherwith the Welfare State and within aframe of social regulation (Bryner,1990).

Furthermore, the rise ofconsumerism seems to have beenconnected with a change in socialcriticism in its broadest sense.

In fact, until the 1960s, socialcriticism of capitalism used tochallenge society as a whole; from aparticular moment on – it is difficultto say exactly when; perhaps May1968 might be seen as a watershedin this respect – challenging societyas a whole ran out of breath; in itsplace that society came to beaccepted in principle as a fact andcriticism was redirected towardsspecific aspects of the social life.Concern with an excess oftechnology, disenchantment withscience and the search for a returnto nature, for alternative knowledge,the search for a personal life-style,apart from the great mass, theattention paid to quality of living:these came to gain in importance(Naisbitt, 1982; Naisbitt and

Aburdene, 1990; Popcorn, 1991captured some of those trends). Itwas in that process, as I see it, thatthe question of consumer protectionacquired weight. This was also thecase with other social movements,e.g. feminism and ecology.

Consumer protection wouldevolve differently below the Ecuador.

CONSUMERISM IN BRAZIL

The issue of consumer protectionreached Brazil from the USA, at thebeginning of the 1970s (rather laterthan it had reached Europe) in themidst of a process of an acceleratedmodernization, which took place asthe country was industrialized. It firstreached the media, in connectionwith the regulation of advertising.The first civil associations forconsumer protection appeared, butthey could not manage to take off.

At that time, the government ofthe state of São Paulo began to showsome degree of concern for theconsumer and in 1978 it created theState System for ConsumerProtection in São Paulo. Theexecutive branch of that system,hereinafter known as Procon, was thefirst one in Brazil. The São PauloProcon became the benchmark forthe equivalent organs which began tobe set up in other states in the 1980s.

In 1978 the Code for self-regulation in Advertising wasestablished by Conar (NationalCouncil for Self-Regulation inAdvertising).

From 1982 on, still during thetransition from authoritarianism todemocracy some civil associations(NGOs) emerged. Instituto de

Defesa do Consumidor (Idec), themost successful of them, wascreated in 1987.

In 1988, Brazil received a newConstitution, to replace that of thedictatorship (from 1967). In 1990, aCode for Consumer Protection wasapproved by Congress, and onSeptember 11, 1990, it received the

sanction of President Collor as LawNr. 8078. On March 11th 1991, theCode for Consumer Protection cameinto effect.

So it took almost 20 years for theissue of consumer protection tobecome a set of laws, since it arrivedin Brazil as part of a process ofradiation from the USA to the restof the world. And as the Code forConsumer Protection was approved,another problem was disclosed,regarding its implementation.

This was probably because it metwith a very special context here,perhaps also characteristic of someother countries of Latin America atthe time.

In fact, in the early 1970s,modernization had made the newproblems consumers had to facequite real in Brazil: adulteratedproducts, foodstuffs unsuitable forconsumption due to unhygienicconditions of manufacture or thepresence of toxic addit ives,fraudulent packaging, misleadingpublicity, defects in durable goods– these are only some examples.

And the paraphernalia of organsand disconnected laws available herepreviously resulted in overlappingauthorities on the one hand, and biglacunae on the other, that madeconsumer protection ineffective.

The development of consumer protection as a

question is linked with the consolidation of

capitalist mass production and consumption.

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Also, a consumer culture wasbeing built in society. But neithermodernization nor affluence hadgeneralized in Brazil when the issueof consumer protection was raisedhere; side by side with “affluent spotsof modernity”, many Brazilians stillhad to deal with problems likeabsolute poverty, illiteracy orundereducation, infant mortality,malnutrition, to name a few.

So consumers who could affordto consume were quite withoutprotection. At the same time, formany other people, the right toconsume was not assured. Consumerprotection had a problem oflegitimacy in its beginnings1.

Besides, Brazilians had notradition of participating in NGOs.The state used to be ahead of societyas far as many social demands wereconcerned. And even in periods offormal democracy, citizenship hadactually been rather restricted to thewealthy here. In the 1970s it wasfurther challenged by Brazil’sauthoritarian regime, whichrestricted seriously the freedom ofspeech and association. No wonderit took long for Brazil to have aConsumer Protection Code!

Last but not least, when the issueof consumer protection finallybecame a set of laws (a very goodone, experts say), it bumped intoanother trend that was rising inBrazil: neo-liberalism. And thatmade consumerism lose its punchwithin the state apparel and amongpoliticians.

So when the Code was ready,some of its parts that were self-applicable (e.g. validity dates in

food and drugs) were immediatelyenforced. But other ones dependedon support by other politicians (e.g.when they needed furtherregulation) or at least on customersawareness of their new rights. Andthat was a problem difficult toovercome.

IMPACTS ON THE MARKET

The characteristics of theevolution of consumer protection inBrazil – its belated beginning,during a process of rapidmodernization by authoritarianmeans, the absence of a strongtradition of citizenship, a society

which is non affluent as a whole, thepresence of a large number of socialquestions which were not resolvedwith industrialization, the form ofarticulation between state and civilsociety, and between the rise of theconsumer issue and the process ofregulation of society by the state –have all made consumer protectionmore complex here as comparedwith some First World countries.

In Brazil the issue of consumerprotection belongs in a reality whereproblems of the past and of thefuture have got interwoven anddemand to be solved all at thesame time. This entails a specificconfiguration of the arena wherecompanies act.

Brazilian Consumer ProtectionCode is said to be a very advancedone. The state has made it, walkingahead of civil society. There was nosocial movement preceding it,except inside one sector of the stateapparatus. Awareness of consumers

rights has not evenly spread upamong the Brazilian population,even after the advent of the Code.

The state is rather swift to enforcethe law against those who transgressthe Code. Yet it has not usedresources enough to make the bestuse of it, especially in preventiveaspects such as consumer education.The enforcement of the Code by thestate agencies bumped into the neo-liberal social deregulation trends.

Corporations have reacteddifferently to the Code. There was along negotiation between thegovernment and the private sector inthe early nineties before some normsof the Code could be enforced. Themultinational companies started toapply them first, as they already hadknow-how from other markets inwhich they were present.

As the Code forces corporationsto “listen to the customers andsolve problems inherent in thegoods acquired”, many companies– starting again by multinationalones – have established CustomerServices in their organizations;actually some of them had createdthat service before the Code wasmade. The number of CustomerServices (or SACs as they areknown in Portuguese) rose from 50in 1991 to 3,000 in 1997, accordingto Lazzarini (1997).

Although they were doingnothing else than obey the law, somecompanies started to use theirCustomer Services as a competitivedifferential, advertising them in themedia – under a banner somewhatlike “we care about our customers”.

But the Customer Services werenot equally organized in allcompanies (Zulzke, 1990). Some ofthem were (and still are) justdecorative pieces and customerswho looked for them ended up at theProcon in order to get their problemssolved. Others were put to work highin the organization hierarchy, in theframe of a consumer focussed

The São Paulo Procon became the benchmark for

the equivalent organs which began to be set up in

other states in the 1980s.

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marketing and thus it is possible thatsome private corporations have beenhelping to implement consumersrights in Brazil.

In that direction, a nationalassociation of professionals who workfor Customers Services of privatecompanies, Secanp2, was created in1989 as an NGO. Its mission, as statedin the Secanp site in the Internet, is tobring quality to both the consumerand the corporation, by living up tocustomers expectations and needsand by assuring competitivenessand higher profitability to the privatecompanies.

As Customer Services becameroutinized, more consumers havebecome aware of and attentive totheir rights. That fact was probablyreinforced by the control of inflationby Brazilian government throughthe creation of a strong currency, inmid-1994 which made the incomedistribution slightly better. Inabsolute numbers that meant a ratherbig increase of income in the handsof lower strata and hence a changein their consuming quantities andpatterns. Electro-electronics, forexample, had a sales boom then andthat led to new problems and thusto a deeper sensibility regardingconsumers rights and needs amonglower strata consumers.

But this sensibility is not smoothlyspread in the Brazilian market either.It is much more accurate, for example,in some urban-upper-middle-classsegments, which lead life-styles moresimilar to First World countriesstandards and who are more “worldaware” as they often travel abroad (ordid so before the Brazilian currencywas devaluated in 1999). For marketsegments within those middle classes,“obeying the Code” is not enough asa competitive differential. Sellingbiodegradable detergents, recycledpaper, low fat food may be a goodone, though, as well as sponsoringcultural events or doing some typesof social marketing.

Anyhow, the development ofconsumer consciousness is still incourse in Brazil. According to thetarget, the company has to deal in avery different way with the questionof consumers expectations.

Last but not least, the opening ofBrazilian economy to internationalmarkets since the early 1990s inthe context of the process ofglobalization may have been acritical factor for the generalizationof consumer consciousness.

Globalization has brought boththe consumer protection issue andnew multinational corporations toBrazil. And as it goes on, aside fromother dimensions3, it seems to havea double effect.

At a regional level, particularly inthe Mercosur, Brazil has been facingthe problem – already faced by theUSA and the European Community– of harmonizing norms of our Codewith the ones of other country-members. That harmonization hasbeen rather complicated as consumerprotection seems to be moreadvanced in Brazil than in otherfellow countries of South America:in some of them (e.g. Chile, Uruguay,Argentina) consumer protection isweaker than in Brazil and in othersthere was no protective legislationat all (e.g. in Paraguay). Thedevaluation of Brazilian currency hasmade it even more difficult.

As for the domestic market,global competition has had a verystrong impact on the Brazilianconsumers points of view as theyhave had a wider spectrum of choiceas well as the opportunity to comparedomestic made goods to foreignmade similar ones; and many of thelatter have proven to be lessexpensive and of better quality thanBrazilian ones.

So, the existence of an advancedCode in Brazil – with its society splitin so different segments, some ofthem “all globalized” and others whoare barely reached by the right to

consume, (but already touched byconsumer culture) and wherecitizenship is still being built – hasopened up possibilities for the privatesector to treat consumers better thanbefore (in different mannersaccording to the targets) and to usethat as a competitive differential, asglobalization increases competition.

By doing that, private corporationswill be not only investing on theirimage and positioning themselvesbetter in the market. They will be alsocontributing to the building of abetter society for everybody. �

Gisela B. Taschner isProfessor at EAESP/FGV.

E-mail: gtaschner@fgvsp.br

REFERENCES

BRYNER, Gary. La protection du consommateur aux etats-unis: naissance et déclin de l’approche réglementaire.Revue Française d’Administration Publique, nr. 56, p. 591-603, Oct./Dec. 1990.

LAZZARINI, Marilena. O movimento dos consumidores noBrasil. In: SEMINÁRIO INTERNACIONAL: O CONSUMIDORNO CONTEXTO DA GLOBALIZAÇÃO. São Paulo : Institutode Defesa do Consumidor (Idec), jul. 1997.

NAISBITT, John. Megatrends. New York : Warner Booksp,1982.

_____, ABURDENE, Patricia. Megatrends 2000. NewYork : William Morrow & Co., 1990.

POPCORN, Faith. The Popcorn report. New York :Doubleday, 1991.

SECANP. Available from Internet: <http:// www.secanp.com. br>.

TASCHNER, Gisela B. Proteção do consumidor - um estudocomparativo internacional. São Paulo : EAESP-FGV/NPP,1995. (Série Relatórios de Pesquisa, nº 1/95).

ZULZKE, Maria Lucia. Abrindo a empresa para oconsumidor. Rio de Janeiro : Qualitymark, 1990.

NOTES

This text is part of a bigger work still in progress; a firstversion of it was presented at the Cladea 1997, XXXII AnnualAssembly, Oct. 8-10, Monterrey, Mexico.

1. Cf. Maria Inês Fornazzaro, Chair of SP Procon and oneof its oldest members, reported, apud Taschner (1995).

2. I would like to thank Cíntia M. Araujo for gathering relevantinformation about Secanp and Idec for this article.

3. There are several other dimensions of globalization whichare obviously very important, e.g. financial ones, but theyare out of the scope of this paper.