Brazil, home of the bikini and the wax, has a more prudish side, represented in the ad world by Conar, it's self-regulating taste police. When a Brazilian beer company hired the notoriously immodest Paris Hilton to film a spot promoting Devassa Bem Loura (very blond) beer, the regulators opened an investigation to determine whether the ad was too hot, by local standards.

Paris Hilton's Devassa Bem Loura commercial



According to the group's code of conduct, ads should not make sensuality the primary message of the commercial, and should not treat ad models as sex objects. (One wonders what Ms. Hilton believes her attributes are, if not sex object.)

Conar also is evaluating the commercial on the grounds that it promotes excessive consumption. And after protests by the Secretariat for Womens' Affairs, it is also contemplating a charge of sexism and lack of respect toward women.

This seems like grasping at straws to me, and after checking out other beer ads from Brazil, I can't understand what is different about the Paris ad, which seems tame by American standards. Perhaps Hilton is not a popular name down under. The globe, that is.

Bavarian Beer