PR Voice

A Letter from Brazil

I'm sorry to be leaving Brazil but now the final curtain has come down on the 3rd World Public Relations Festival it's time to get back to the day job.

It was an excellent event - made for me by our enthusiastic and cheerful Brazilian hosts who did a fantastic job of organising such a large and ambitious conference with delegates from all around the globe.

What struck me most of all, is how passionate our colleagues overseas are about the practice of public relations - and just how difficult it is for some of them who live in countries with a different type of "democracy" to our own.

Culture Shock

As so often happens when travelling away from the usual tourist hot-spots, I've been struck by how differently public relations is practiced around the world.

Brasilia is a good case in point. It's an incredibly good looking city which acts as a shop window to the world. This of course was the intention of the then President half a century ago when he sought to shake off Brazil's Third World image of corruption and general inefficiency.

In that he was successful. Few visitors to this new, world-class capital city could fail to be impressed by the huge advances that have been made. Building a city from scratch is not a luxury many people have, and I know from a recent talk I gave to members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors that Brasilia's reputation as a model of urban planning is of great interest to British property specialists.

Now I support Brazil

My friends and colleagues know I have absolutely no interest in football - but even I got caught up in the excitement of yesterday's Brazil v Ghana World Cup game.

I ducked out of the conference over an enforced break in the proceedings to try and see a few sights and do a bit of shopping not realising that when the Brazilians are described as football mad they mean FOOTBALL MAD.

Drumming up support

Today's opening ceremony of the World Public Relations Festival in Brazil contained a unique mix of pomp, ceremony and... drumming, which could only have happened in South America.

The futuristic glass and steel-clad Ulysses Guimaraes Convention Centre in the centre of Brasilia was in stark contrast to the lengthy opening speeches by Government Ministers and academics which recalled an older more formal type of event.

Two and a half hours of fine words with no visual aids are expected at a conference of this stature in this part of the world. But to those of us from Europe - still suffering from a touch of jet lag - it was something of a culture shock.

But not half as shocking as the musical entertainment which burst into the auditorium at the end of the opening ceremony. Thirty or forty beautiful young Brazilian women banging the hell out of huge drums as they leapt around the stage was a visual as well as aural feast which I know gave Colin Farrington an idea or two for the CIPR annual conference in November.

Bom Dia from Brazil!

As previously mentioned, I'm representing the CIPR at the World Public Relations Festival in Brazil and after a 32 hour journey I finally made it here.

No problems with the flight from Heathrow - thanks to British Airways and its ever-efficient staff. But fog in Sao Paulo, Brazil meant an unscheduled diversion to a small military airport in the middle of nowhere and a five hour wait for the weather to improve.

A cancelled internal flight due to Brazilian carrier Varig's ongoing financial problems meant a cab ride across busy Sao Paulo to another airport and another five hour wait.

My travelling companion - CIPR director general Colin Farrington - and I decided we'd had enough of airports and after dumping our bags at check-in decided to explore.

Although we ended up in a part of town the guidebooks would probably recommend tourists should avoid, we had our first taste of Brazil in what would probably pass for an up-market greasy spoon back home.