Try it at home: Avon and gender in Brazil, 1958–1975

Abstract

This article examines the entry of US-based cosmetics firm Avon into the Brazilian market from 1958 to 1975. Avon's direct-to-home distribution model and family brand strategy gave the company a competitive advantage in the Brazilian cosmetics market. However, Avon's branch managers had to adapt the company's marketing strategy and recruitment practices to accommodate Brazilian standards of feminine respectability and in response to saleswomen who expanded distribution beyond the company's original target markets. Avon's Brazilian branch excluded women from management positions, and the company's marketing materials emphasised conservative gender roles for women. Nonetheless, Avon sales increased many women's economic agency.

Keywords::

• cosmetics industry
• gender
• Brazil
• marketing strategy
• multinational enterprise
• direct sales

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a travel to collections grant from the Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, DE); by a travel grant from the University of Maryland's Department of History; and by the James R. Scobie Award from the Conference on Latin American History.

Notes

1. Avon's entry in Brazil coincided with broader debates about Brazilian gender norms regarding work in the early 1960s. By the mid-1970s, women's independent participation in the workforce was much more broadly accepted than it had been a decade before.

2. Gordon, Fabricating Consumers, Chapter 3. Uri Kupferschmidt has also noted that sewing machine ownership allowed many women in the early twentieth century Middle East to pursue economic activities that increased their financial independence. Kupferschmidt, “The Social History of the Sewing Machine,” 209.

3. Moreno, Yankee, Don't Go Home!, 142–146.

4. In Dulcinea in the Factory, Ann Farnsworth-Alvear argues that Colombian textile factories scaled back women's employment in response to populist national labour policies centered on expanding wages for male heads of household. Susan Besse maintains that early twentieth century Brazilian employers exploited gender norms that devalued women's labour by paying them less and restricted women's employment opportunities. See Besse, Restructuring Patriarchy. Barbara Weinstein's examination of São Paulo industrial federations in For Social Peace in Brazil reveals that industrialists viewed women's employment as only temporary and promoted home economics classes that trained working-class women to be effective and efficient housewives.

5. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 3, 222. Jones argues that brand variation between countries became the norm in the 1950s and 1960s.

6. Wolf, The Beauty Myth.

7. Jones, “Blond and Blue-eyed?”; Sutton, Globalizing Ideal Beauty.

8. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 2, 364–655; Peiss, Hope in a Jar, 5–8, 269. Like Jones and Peiss, Sutton has highlighted the important role that women played in shaping the cosmetics industry as advertising copyrighters. Sutton, Globalizing Ideal Beauty.

9. Manko, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling!” 231, 240, 283.

10. Feitz, “Democratizing Beauty,” 57–60.

11. Feitz's research on Avon's Latin American operations is primarily based on company archives at the Hagley Museum and Library that contain limited documentation on the cosmetics market or the experiences of Avon personnel in Latin America.

12. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 231.

13. Brazilian gender norms reflected class hierarchies that valorised a middle-class standard of feminine domesticity that few outside of the middle class could attain. In her study of gender discourse in 1950s Brazilian magazines, Carla Bassanezi has observed that to maintain their respectability prior to marriage, middle-class women were expected to avoid being seen alone with men in public. Once married, to remain ‘preserved from the streets’, middle-class women were not expected to work unless it was economically necessary, and were admonished to avoid frequent excursions in public without the presence of their husbands. Bassanezi, “Mulheres dos Anos Dourados,” 610–612, 625, 628.

14. ‘Afro-Brazilian’ is used here to describe Brazilians of African descent who in the 1960s would likely have self-identified as either ‘black’ or ‘brown’. For more on Brazilian racial identity and race relations in this period, see Hanchard, Orpheus and Power.

15. Feitz, “Democratizing Beauty,” 18–19.

16. Ibid., 23–24.

17. Ibid., 24.

18. Ibid., 45, 49.

19. Ibid., 89.

20. Baer, The Brazilian Economy, 58–60.

21. Ibid., 60–61; 181–182.

22. Jones, “Blond and blue-eyed?,” 131.

23. Instituto Brasileiro de Opinião Pública e Estatística, “Serviço de pesquisa entre consumidores,” Rio de Janeiro, Jan. 1961, IBOPE collection, Arquivo Edgard Leuenroth, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, hereafter cited as IBOPE. IBOPE measured whether consumers owned a brand or type of product, but not how often they purchased it. For this reason, ownership figures from IBOPE are not exact measures of market share.

24. Press clippings from “Brazil 1959 Scrapbook,” Avon Products Inc., Records, Hagley Museum & Library, Wilmington, hereafter cited as AVON. The provided estimate is based on the favourable “cambio de custo” exchange rate of Cr$100 per dollar in January 1959. See Baer, The Brazilian Economy, 58–60. January 2014 dollars calculated using the US Department of Labor's Historical Consumer Price Index Table, http://www.bls.gov/cpi/#tables, accessed 21 May 2014.

25. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 228.

26. Product pricing information from Panoramas 1959–1960 and Campaign Mailings 1–7, 1970, AVON. Percentages relative to minimum salaries listed in Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Anuário estatístico do Brasil, vol. 34 (1973): 641. Information on the declining value of the minimum salary from Gonzago and Machado, “Rendimentos e preços.”

27. “Serviço de pesquisa entre consumidores,” Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Jan. 1961, IBOPE. Avon also maintained the largest range of products in São Paulo, where IBOPE tracked fewer product categories.

28. For more on how “family” branding contributed to companies' marketing advantages in the twentieth century, see Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed.

29. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 232.

30. Ademar dos Santos Seródio Interview, Museu da Pessoa,“Avon – Memória dos 50 anos de Brazil,” Digital Collection, accessed October 15, 2011, www.museudapessoa.net, hereafter cited as “Avon – Memória.”

31. For more on the cost advantages of a contracted salesforce to direct-sales organisations, see Biggart, Charismatic Capitalism.

32. Press clippings from “Brazil 1959 Scrapbook,”AVON.

33. Albertina de Araújo Dias Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

34. Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal have noted that multinationals selling branded packaged products benefit from granting national branches substantial autonomy so that they can successfully respond to varying cultural, regulatory, and economic conditions. Bartlett and Ghoshal, Managing Across Borders, 23–25.

35. Naideau, “Keynote Address,” International Division General Manager's Conference, Rye, NY, 24–28 June 1963, p. 6, AVON.

36. Ibid., 7.

37. Kemper, “Branch Personnel Management Policies & Objectives,” International Division General Manager's Conference, Rye, NY, 24–28 June 1963, p. 11, AVON.

38. Ruth Pacheco Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

39. Ibid.

40. For more on female district and city sales managers in the US, see Manko, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling!” Ch. 5.

41. Panorama, Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

42. Nicole Woolsey Biggart has identified status hierarchies to be an important organisational characteristic of direct sales organisations. Companies can use status to motivate and exercise loose control over nominally independent sales representatives without having to spend substantial resources on sales management. Biggart, Charismatic Capitalism, 8, 90–91.

43. “Lista de Honra: Vendas Até a Campanha 13, 1966,”Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

44. Panorama, Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1968, AVON.

45. João Bosco Maggioli Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

46. Ademar dos Santos Seródio Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

47. Kemper, “Branch Personnel Management Policies,” 2–6.

48. Ibid, 6.

49. Manko, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling!” 215.

50. Harold Naideau, “Keynote Address,” 3.

51. Ibid., 5.

52. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 228.

53. Manko, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling!” 13, 265.

54. Verucci, A Mulher e o direito, 61–62.

55. For da Silva's most prominent columns in the women's magazine Claudia, see da Silva, A Arte de ser mulher.

56. “Pesquisa sobre o comportamento e a situação global da mulher,” 1967, Pesquisas especiais, IBOPE.

57. In a prominent example of censorship, copies of the January 1967 edition of the magazine Realidade, which addressed the controversial topics of abortion, single motherhood, and prostitution were confiscated in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. See “A apreensão de Realidade,” Realidade, N^o 11 (February, 1967): 3–4.

58. Bassanezi, “Mulheres dos anos dourados,” 613–614.

59. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 229.

60. João Bosco Maggioli Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

61. Ibid.

62. Ângela Maria Rocco Prates da Fonseca Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

63. João Bosco Maggioli Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

64. “Lista de Honra: Vendas Até a Campanha 13, 1966,” Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

65. Panoramas,1959–1960, AVON.

66. IBGE, Anuário estatístico do Brasil, vol. 34 (1973): 641.

67. “Serviço de pesquisa entre consumidores,” IBOPE. Class composition percentages are averaged from 1961, 1965, and 1971 percentages for Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

68. Ibid., Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Jan. 1961.

69. US company data from the 1930s and 1940s revealed that average representatives only served 10 to 30 customers. Manko, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling,” 226.

70. Ibid., 288–289.

71. Panorama, Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

72. “Lista de Honra: Vendas Até a Campanha 13, 1966,” Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid.

75. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 228.

76. João Bosco Maggioli Interview, “Avon–Memória.”

77. Ibid.

78. “Lista de Honra: Vendas Até a Campanha 13, 1966,” Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

79. Brazil – Magazine Advertisement, Int_Ads_00013.jpg, AVON.

80. Campaign Mailings 1–10 and 11–19, 1970. Avon Products Inc., Records, Hagley Museum and Library.

81. US Black Ads, 1966–1980. Avon Products Inc., Records, Hagley Museum and Library.

82. Own elaboration of data from IBGE, Anuário estatístico do Brasil, vols. 30 & 34 (1969 and 1973).

83. Manko, “Ding Dong! Avon Calling!” 220, 265.

84. “Lista de Honra: Vendas Até a Campanha 13, 1966,” Campaign Mailings 1–11, 1967, AVON.

85. Ownership statistics from “Serviço de pesquisa entre consumidores,” Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo Jan.–Feb. 1961, Jan.–Feb. 1965, and Jan.–Feb. 1971, IBOPE. Avon was also widely owned in several categories in São Paulo, where IBOPE tracked a smaller number of product categories.

86. Ibid. By 1965, IBOPE measured ownership in the greater Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo metropolitan areas. To make direct comparisons with data collected for 1961, data for 1965 and 1971 are on ownership in the State of Guanabara, which comprised the city of Rio de Janeiro, and the city of São Paulo. Figures 3 and 4 represent an unweighted average of data between the two cities as IBOPE did not provide an estimate of the number of households in each city for 1965 and 1971.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid.

89. IBGE, Anuário estatístico do Brasil, vol. 38 (1978): 74.

90. Jones, “Blond and Blue-eyed?,” 131. Unilever estimates.

91. “Serviço de pesquisa entre consumidores,” Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo Jan–Feb. 1961 and Jan–Feb. 1971, IBOPE. By 1971, IBOPE reports generally lumped Class A and B ownership statistics together.

92. Ademar dos Santos Seródio Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

93. Albertina de Araújo Dias Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

94. Antonia Natalina Gasparine da Silva Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

95. João Bosco Maggioli Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

96. Antonia Natalina Gasparine da Silva Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

97. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 231.

98. Ibid., 230.

99. Jones argues that direct sellers like Avon and Natura benefitted when their competitors' distribution channels suffered during the economic stagnation of the 1980s. Jones, Beauty Imagined, 355.

100. Pinto, Uma história do femnismo, 56–66. The military regime's restrictions on speech and assembly also began to ease in 1975, facilitating the emergence of new feminist organisations.

101. Albertina de Araújo Dias Interview, “Avon – Memória.”

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Shawn Moura

Shawn Moura is a doctoral candidate in Latin American history at the University of Maryland.