The Colonial Side of Advertising Self-Regulation: Imperialist Consumerism in Latin America

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyze, through a decolonial perspective and using a historical approach, the geopolitical and colonial elements present in the origins of the Advertising Self-Regulation System (ASRS), created by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), its internalization, promoted by the International Advertising Association (IAA), and its imposition in Latin America. To achieve this, the study focuses on discussing the creation of ASRS and the origins of its creator, ICC; the internalization of ASRS and the origins of its main sponsor, IAA; the influence of ASRS in the context of the Brazilian consumerist movement. Each event was studied considering the relations between the phenomena under analysis and the three colonialities theory. Therefore, each event was related to a category, which was composed of subcategories that discussed each of the three colonialities). By adopting the decolonial perspective, it was possible to better understand how the system was used geopolitically to universalize Eurocentric concepts of consumerism.