Oil cos. pump up advertising in Brazil By J. Roberto Whitaker-Pentead

RIO DE JANEIRO--The six oil companies here have bombarded Brazilians with new advertising for their premium brands, in print and on TV. The ads

Although Petrobras is still the sole producer of gasoline and diesel oil, price controls have been lifted and independent vendors are now allowed to add their own ingredients to the monoply’s basic products. Marketplace runners-up such as Shell, Esso, Atlantic, Texaco and the only Brazilian owned company, Ipiranga, are in a race to carve out a chunk of the 5-billion-liter market.
For instance, Esso’s advertising, created by J.