The world is watching Brazil: what Brazilian soft power teaches communication

Think about the last time someone from abroad told you what they admire about Brazil. The list usually includes music, soccer, food and people who strike up a conversation in the coffee line. International reputation indexes call this power of attraction Brazilian soft power, and in 2025 and 2026 it showed up in rankings, on music platforms, in tourism and even at the Oscars. Here at Mentoniano, we look at these numbers with a scriptwriter's question: what exactly is the world admiring? The answer points to a way of communicating. And that way disappears when your company hands its speech, video or sales message over to generic text.

What Brazilian soft power is and how it is measured

Soft power is the name reputation studies give to a country's ability to attract admiration through its culture, its people and the image it projects. The consultancy Brand Finance measures this perception every year in the Global Soft Power Index, with interviews in more than 100 countries. The index gives 90% weight to the opinion of the general public and 10% to that of specialists.

In the 2025 edition, Brazil ranked 31st, with a score of 48.8 out of 100. It topped the global ranking for the attribute "leaders in sports", placed 15th in the Culture and Heritage pillar and 9th in the attribute "friendly". The Brand Finance press release also presents Brazil as home to the most "fun" people in the world. The same survey points to governance as the country's weak spot, at 76th place in that category.

In 2026, Brazil climbed two positions, reached 29th place and became the highest-ranked country in Latin America, according to Brand Finance and Bloomberg Línea. In Culture and Heritage, it went from 15th to 11th place. The consultancy describes a very distinctive cultural narrative, shaped by music, Carnival, soccer and cuisine, and attributes part of the recent visibility to COP30, held in Belém. The data come from Brand Finance's own press releases and reflect one consultancy's reading of perceptions.

Signs of global interest in Brazilian culture

On March 2, 2025, Ainda Estou Aqui (I'm Still Here), by Walter Salles, won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, the first Oscar for a Brazilian film. According to the Associated Press, the film was also nominated for Best Picture, a first for a production from the country, and Fernanda Torres competed for Best Actress. The report does not include audience figures, so we left box office numbers out.

In music, Spotify reported in May 2025 that nearly 11.8 billion discoveries of Brazilian artists had happened that year, up 19% from 2023. The company cites discoveries in places such as Mexico, the United States, Germany and Spain, without saying whether the count includes listeners in Brazil itself. The company also recorded, in 2024, a 51% increase in international streams of Brazilian female artists such as MC Ster, Anitta and Bibi Babydoll. These are the platform's own numbers, without external auditing.

Tourism moved in the same direction. Brazil recorded 9.3 million international tourist arrivals in 2025, up 37.1% from 2024, the year of the previous record, according to Ministry of Tourism data released by Agência Brasil. The figure counts arrivals: someone who entered the country twice appears twice.

The language also attracts people. In Duolingo's 2023 report, Portuguese entered the top 10 most studied languages on the platform, and the reason learners cited most was connecting with people (23%), ahead of preparing for a trip (18%). Among new Portuguese learners, 72% were under 30. The data point is from 2023 and comes from a press release by the company itself, so it serves to indicate a trend.

What the world admires in Brazil is a way of communicating

Go back to the attributes that lift Brazil in the indexes: "friendly", "fun", a culture made of music, celebration, soccer and food. Add to that the reason people study Portuguese, which is to connect with others. All of this describes people relating to people. In our reading, what the world admires in Brazil has to do with the way Brazilians talk, welcome, joke, tell stories and celebrate.

Behavioral research and the country's cultural output point to recurring traits in this way of speaking: warmth and closeness, humor built on shared references, orality, rhythm, creativity, a taste for stories told in episodes, hospitality, conversation, an intense presence on social media and collective celebration. These traits show up in averages, in surveys and in the work of artists. They describe tendencies of the country as a whole without defining each person, and Brazilian audiences recognize when a message speaks on this frequency.

In our reading, a message reaches this muscle when it sounds like someone from here talking to someone from here.

How Brazilian soft power gets lost in generic text

Now think of a convention speech put together by an AI tool from a quick request. The text tends to bring correct sentences, words like "synergy" and "excellence", a ceremonious "we" and no scenes. The audience listens politely, and the risk is that one of those sentences later circulates as a joke in the team's group chat and ends up being the most remembered line of the day.

Mechanical text tends to come out standardized because it starts from what is most common in what has already been written. It usually brings constructions that sound translated, abstractions in place of people and the same tone for any audience. Everything the indexes point to as a Brazilian strength is left outside: closeness, laughter, relaxed speech, the story with a character and a place.

This matters even more when the company speaks to the outside world. A video shown to investors, to partners from another country or to visitors at an event carries the brand's image and, along with it, a bit of Brazil's image. When we write a corporate video script, we start by listening: who is speaking, to whom, and with what words that person usually expresses themselves. That is where the voice of the script comes from.

If your company is from abroad and wants to speak to Brazilian audiences, see how we work on scriptwriting for the Brazilian market.

The traits of Brazilian communication we will examine

Each of these traits gets its own article, always with sources. The next article in the series, Affective communication: Brazilian warmth as a brand strategy, gathers what research says about closeness and collectivism and what foreigners living here report about making friends. Then comes Humor in Brazilian advertising: the laughter that makes a brand memorable, with data on humor and ad effectiveness and on meme culture. Next, Write the way you speak: the orality of Brazilian Portuguese in scripts covers the linguistics of real speech, from "a gente" (the colloquial "we") to "né?" ("right?").

After that, we cover the rhythm Brazilian music teaches writers, the advertising creativity that takes Brazil to festivals, the telenovela and storytelling in episodes, the hospitality visitors describe, conversation over WhatsApp, content creators and the celebration of Carnival. The closing article shows how to work with a scriptwriter so your brand speaks with this voice.

Frequently asked questions about Brazilian soft power

What is Brazilian soft power?

It is Brazil's ability to attract admiration through its culture, its people and the image it projects. Brand Finance measures this perception in the Global Soft Power Index, with interviews in more than 100 countries.

Where does Brazil rank in soft power?

Brazil ranked 31st in 2025 and rose to 29th in 2026, as the highest-ranked country in Latin America. In Culture and Heritage, it went from 15th to 11th place.

What does Brazilian soft power have to do with corporate communication?

The attributes that weigh most in the country's favor, such as "friendly" and "fun", describe a way of relating and speaking. When a Brazilian brand uses generic text, it leaves this voice out and misses the chance to sound like the country the world admires.