Selling Guaraná Soda in 20th-Century Brazilian Advertising
Friday, October 17, 2025 12:15–1:15 PM
Description
Guaraná, Brazil’s “national soda,” derives its name from a caffeine-rich Amazonian berry that is a trace ingredient in the drink. This talk examines the popularization of the soft drink—today, a multibillion dollar industry--in the context of Brazilian industrialization and the rise of a mass consumer society. It focuses on the early marketing of the soft drink, when the soda companies deployed “exotic” images of Amazonian flora and Indigenous peoples that played upon or compounded urban Brazilian consumers’ misconceptions of the region. In the process, a plant that was intrinsic to Indigenous peoples’ traditional myths was repurposed to serve the larger myths of modern Brazilian society.Seth Garfield, professor of history at University of Texas - Austin, will join us for this lecture on "Picturing the Amazon: Selling Guaraná Soda in Twentieth-Century Brazilian Advertising."