GE Brasil | Edelman and the F-16

It is interesting to look back at the dynamics of the late elections here in Brazil in light of an important pending deal: the acquisition of some 20-odd brand new fighter jets for the Brazilian Air Force.

Representing General Electric, the manufacturer of the Rolls Royce F186 engines that would come standard on any next-generation F-16s — if the Brazilians select that aircraft over the French Rafale — is Edelman Worldwide‘s newest division, Blue Advertising – which also handled the most recent Windows Vista rollout.

The agency also handles “social marketing” for the Business Software Alliance and “advocacy campaigns” for the Business Roundtable, the American Petroleum Institutte, and so on and so forth — mainly umbrella organizations. A rumor is circulating, though not with much vehemence, that the Swedes are out of the running. Could just be malicious gossip. There is a lot of that going around.

GE was a very prominent source of what looked an awful lot like “soft money” campaigning — the Brazilian lack  this term still — in the late elections, particularly through projects co-financed by State and USAID, on one end, and by Sambodian state and municipal governments and related state-owned companies — SABESP, the NYSE-listed sanitation company, especially — on the other.

A brilliant TV ad campaign for how great SABESP is, and then after the elections, CETESB reports that the North Shore beaches are too polluted to open. Vix.

Youth mobilization was a key strategy, and related organizations and events such as Campus Party — the federal situation selected its digital communicator in chief from among the organizers – the “Camps” movement, the Association for Youth Movements and International Youth Foundation-Fellowship played an active role in creating an “ideological” context for the opposition campaign.