Vito began his artistic career at the age of 16. Currently, at 23, the artist begins to take his first steps in advertising steadily
Music and advertising have a lot in common. They have the power to take the public to places, moments, feel emotions, relive memories and, moreover, both are art in essence.
No wonder that brands are always looking for artists to star in their plays and it has a name that has become increasingly common in traditional “advertisements”. Vito.
Victor Carvalho Ferreira, or simply Vito, is a 23-year-old singer from São Paulo who has conquered the music and advertising scene. With a seven-year career, the artist has already performed on some of the most important national stages, such as Rock in Rio, and sang alongside renowned artists, such as Anitta.
Despite being a lion of the music scene, a total reference to the singer’s curls, in advertising the artist is still in its infancy, but in constant growth.
“It was healthy that I didn’t flirt a lot with brands in the first year, to have a more guarded moment, thinking only about music and positioning myself only musically and artistically, so that later I could have a different market positioning”, stated Vito.
With a shy entry, 2022 was a year in which fans were able to follow Vito’s evolution with the brands in a more constant way. With campaigns for Havaianas, Coca-Cola, Ray Ban, Quem Disse, Berenice?, the artist prides himself on working alongside brands that speak to what he believes in: freedom in its healthy place.
To PROPMARKVito talks about his early career, his relationship with environmental causes and his entry into advertising.
How did your relationship with music and art in general begin?
Since I was a child, my life has always been quite pulverized by the music of many
rhythms and styles because of my parents, mainly, because they got to know each other through music, dancing, that came a lot from them as a couple, and passed on a lot to me and my brother. A life surrounded by music. So my relationship with music started from my musical and cultural background. I didn’t like certain things in pre-adolescence, due to the ignorance of childhood, perhaps because I didn’t have an ear for it, but then I ended up falling in love with it and I learned to listen and to like it. I learned to play the guitar with one that my father bought for about 60 reais, which had some frets missing. I started picking up this guitar when I was little, really a child, and playing alone, playing the songs my parents listened to by ear. And that’s how my taste for music came about. I started to identify with what I heard and translate it to the guitar when I was 7 or 8 years old. From then on, my parents realized that I wanted to study music, which was what I wanted to do even when I was still a kid, and they started to provide me with that. I studied at a school that had a very artistic side, always encouraging students. When I started to really study guitar and guitar, I already knew that was what I wanted to do with my life. I was already composing some things, I played, but I only started singing when I was about 14, thanks to a theater play I did at school. From that moment I already knew that I wanted to make a living from music, but also as a voice communicator, singing, putting words into music, not only as an instrumentalist. I’ve always been very passionate about music, I never saw any role on earth for me other than music, in art as a whole.
For you, what was the turning point in your career?
There were many moments, but I put some music releases that brought me that feeling. I think the first was when I was still doing covers on Youtube, playing the songs I liked on the guitar and making videos. There was a day that a guy recognized me at the gym. He said that he had already seen one of my videos and that for me was really crazy, because it was the first moment that I noticed the smallest detail of recognition that I was getting from my music, from my work. It was a very special day, I made a super post on Facebook at the time, all happy that I had been recognized for the first time. Another great moment was with the song Embrasa, with Lucas Carlos, which was a song that started to move very organically, it started to be played on the radio, people started to recognize me in places, I started to do several shows. Then with my first EP, and with Café, a solo song, I saw recognition increasing there, and it gave me the feeling of turning point precisely because it is a solo song, which is still played on the radio. And then came Complicado with Anitta, which was another sphere of recognition at the level of Brazil and even the beginning of international recognition, because it was exactly at that moment that Russ, an artist who recently released the track Quero with me, which has in super growth in the United States, and worldwide as well, a very powerful guy in music, great producer, composer, musician, that I had already sent him several messages as a fan, wanting to do things together and such, then when Complicado came out, he saw the messages, said he heard the song and liked it, and from that we started a dialogue that unfolded to what we have today, which is a song together. To this day, I still have that feeling at different times. a construction, a walk.
You’ve been on the road for a few years now, but we’ve only started to see your brand-related face recently. How did your relationship with brands start?
My relationship with brands started from the moment I started to put a little more of my opinions in a social context. When I started to position myself a little more. The moment I started to take more risks, in terms of positioning myself in the world, what I think and things like that. And I think a lot of brands ended up identifying with that because I speak very strongly about freedom. My primary talk is basically about everything freedom, freedom in its healthy place. To be and exist the way we want. So, from the moment I trusted the brands and they started to trust who I am, our relationship began to grow closer, supporting each other’s values.
Do you think brands had any resistance to working with you?
I don’t know if it was resistance. I think that the beginning of my work, the people who worked with me at the time were not very focused on this. It has always been very music and art oriented. And it was even healthy in the early years for me not to have flirted with brands too much, to have left that for later so that I could have an artistic growth. It was healthy to have a more sheltered moment and thinking only about music and positioning myself only musically and artistically, so that later I could have a different market positioning, associating myself with brands and positioning myself through them. Now, me and the people who work with me, we proposed to play in this field of publicity, of brands and this has been happening very quickly and very firmly. Especially because it is a market that has been growing a lot. Brands are more and more at festivals, associating themselves more and more with music, and opening themselves up. I always wanted to combine my artistic skills with marketing, composing jingle music, for example, so when I started working with K2L, we talked about that, about me being able to unite my art and the best way I have to express myself. with the market.
You are an artist who is very involved with the whole process of your art. Is this also reflected when it comes to brands?
Yes, the way I communicate to the world always has to be very
aligned with me, because I’m the one who’s going to slap in the end. So, I have been putting myself more and more in front of and side by side with the people who work with me. I get involved in the aesthetics of the clothes I wear, in what I’m going to wear, and this also in relation to the brands, I’m always aware of what they’re negotiating, I want to test the products before releasing them to see if I actually agree with what’s being said. sold, whether or not it makes sense for me to be aligned with a certain brand, how to script advertising in a way that is true to me. Sometimes it also happens that the scope of advertising is already very much in line with what I would like and think. But in many moments it is important to polish and always be very present in this process, to translate what I believe.
Today you have some brands in your portfolio. What was the first brand that sought you out and what was the job?
It was a live, which I remember with great affection because it was together with Fbio Porchat and the other artists, talking about a new Fiat launch. Another one that was one of the first and most recognized as advertisements was an advertisement I did for Jean Paul Gaultier, about perfume. Another very special one was Havaianas, which was inspired by a video of me in Rio de Janeiro. It was a publication with a lot of truth and that brought the Brazilian thing very strong in its essence. Brazilian faces and diversity. Black skin, beautiful people, sun, beach… Many things that I experience, that I feel. It was a very genuine piece of work that made a lot of sense to me.
You are a person very connected to social causes, especially indigenous ones. Do you think this influences your relationship with brands? Perhaps yes. I think it’s interesting for brands to be connected to people who talk about important issues. Before brands, I became part of Greenpeace’s digital brigade, for example, so it’s a field that I’m starting to explore in the last year and a half, of talking about things that also flirt a lot with politics, with social causes and with environmental causes, mainly, which I think are very grandiose. These are things that go hand in hand. And looking across the brands, being affiliated with artists who are involved in these themes, positioning themselves in this way, makes sense and adds value. It brings importance to brands and to those who speak. I position myself the way I believe, I naturally attract brands that agree with my positioning, and we strengthen an idea together, we add to a greater goal. For me, the important thing is to talk about these issues so that we can achieve some effective change in the world, even if little by little.
What do you consider when closing a partnership with
any brand/company?
First, that it makes sense to me in relation to what I think,
I believe and the way I live. It’s no use connecting with something that has nothing to do with my way of being, dressing, behaving and thinking. And then, be something that I can somehow link to my art. That I can be an artist talking about it, not a famous person talking. It makes a lot of difference to me that brands see that I am an artist using my art. The brand discourse also weighs heavily. If it’s a brand, regardless of size, that is involved with an environmental scandal, for example, I won’t associate with it because it goes completely against everything I believe in. My team already knows and they analyze it a lot even before they sell me the idea. If the brand’s discourse and their positioning speak to me. There must always be a connection between the artist Vito and the brand.
Of the advertisements you’ve done, which one did you like the most?
It’s hard to choose, I’ve always been very welcomed and well represented through the brands I’ve joined in some way. But I think Havaianas was a job that brought many things to my people as well, like my friends. There was a rehearsal in a community in Rio, it took me out of my comfort zone, with a huge team, it was very intense and with many personal gains. There was also Quem Disse Berenice, who, wow, supported me, let me speak in my own way, totally at ease, it was really nice to do too. In addition to Coca-Cola, which took me to Rock In Rio, it directly involved my music, with a show at the biggest music festival in Brazil and they took me to Mexico. It is impossible not to remember them as one of the best advertisements to date.
How do you see yourself as a brand?
I see myself as a striking mark, of a person who has done remarkable things for his personal life as an individual and, from that, remarkable for the public as well. A highly musical and artistic brand, which flows first from art, before any subject. Where art speaks much louder than money, than the market. And I even see it in an anarchist way, it is not sold in a false way, it is only sold when it makes sense artistically and in a human way.
