Havaianas: An Analysis Through the Lens of a Brazilian Who Doesn’t Wear Them
It's no surprise that Brazil's most iconic brand is Havaianas, but not many people stop to ask how a cheap rubber sandal became a global phenomenon. In this article, I'll analyze how Havaianas used Motivation, Opportunity and Ability (MOA), Preferences and Choices, Identity Signaling, Emotional Branding, and Habit Formation to transform itself from a simple product into a symbol of personal and national identity, all through the lens of a Brazilian girl who doesn't wear Havaianas.
Motivation, Opportunity and Ability (MOA)
Motivation
Havaianas started purely practical: cheap, durable, comfortable footwear for a population where many people couldn't afford leather shoes. Alpargatas, the company that owned Havaianas, sent vans full of their flip-flops into rural Brazil, where people would line up for the cheap and comfy sandals. In 1980, the Brazilian Government included Havaianas in a list of "essential products for Brazilian life," the same list that featured rice and beans, Brazil's staple foods. This made the population see Havaianas as not just a flip-flop, but as part of Brazil's national identity. In 1994, they launched the Havaianas Top line, a bold new marketing campaign that shifted consumers' motivation from functional (needing cheap shoes) to status-driven (belonging). This worked so well because they were no longer competing on price, but instead launching different colors and partnering with Brazilian celebrities to make Havaianas a stylish status symbol. What is truly surprising is how Havaianas, to this day, continues to satisfy both utilitarian and hedonic motivations, remaining a staple in underprivileged communities while also serving as a symbol of status.
Opportunity
Havaianas didn't wait for rural and low-income consumers
to travel to a store; as I mentioned earlier, they created the opportunity by driving vans stocked with flip-flops directly into remote towns. This can be traced back as one of the main factors behind the company's success. As the company grew, it expanded its presence internationally, focusing on high-end retailers, which restricted where consumers could encounter the product to reinforce a premium identity. What further allowed this expansion to maintain the brand's identity was its focus on markets with beach and leisure cultures similar to Brazil (such as Hawaii and Australia) before expanding into more diverse markets.
Ability
The way that Havaianas prices its sandals is also part of a bigger picture. Basic Havaianas retail for about $5 in Brazil, keeping the sandals accessible to low-income consumers, while the same pair retails for up to $20 in the US and up to £40 in the UK. This allows the brand to maintain its Brazilian customers while simultaneously strengthening the company's value in the international market. However, ability isn't only about money, but also how easy a decision is to make: a $5 flip-flop requires almost no deliberation (low cognitive load), which is one reason the original Havaianas spread so quickly.
Preferences & Choice
When Havaianas launched "Make Your Own Havaianas," where customers could pick the gender, base, straps, and pins/jewelry in-store or online, they were able to turn a single SKU into a personalized product and raise the demand, since customers become more attached to products they build themselves than they would to something simply chosen off a shelf (connected to the "IKEA effect"). They also chose to continue expanding styles and options to increase perceived value. The main obstacle they faced with this strategy was the risk of choice overload (decision fatigue, opportunity cost, etc.), which they successfully avoided by narrowing choices into manageable categories. They did this by building distinct sub-choices for each context: wedding/party lines (crystals, pearls), university-branded editions, kids' cartoon designs, etc. This was a subtle move but extremely important because it reduced the cognitive load of an otherwise huge catalog and allowed greater variety to create more value for the brand.
Identity Signaling
A Masterful Switch
1994 was the biggest association flip and cleanest identity-signaling point in Havaianas' trajectory, because they were able to rebrand the flip-flop labeled as a "housemaid's slipper" to a sandal associated with fashion, Brazilian national identity, joy, and sensuality. While the product's material qualities and, for the most part, pricing never changed, their Identity Signaling was enough to completely transform the meaning attached to wearing them. As I previously mentioned, celebrity endorsement was masterfully used to transfer status onto the act of wearing, not the product itself. In Brazil, about 85% of sandals sold are Havaianas, with half of these still going to lower-income buyers, which exemplifies how Havaianas pulls off signaling the practical, comfortable Brazilian as well as the fashion consumer.
The Controversy
In December 2025, Havaianas launched an ad that threatened the identity they meticulously built of a product for “all Brazilians.” In this ad, actress Fernanda Torres plays on the Portuguese expression "começar com o pé direito" (to "start on the right foot"). She says she doesn't want viewers to start 2026 "on the right foot," instead urging them to start "with both feet." Right-wing politicians and influencers, including Eduardo Bolsonaro (son of former president Jair Bolsonaro) and congressman Nikolas Ferreira, framed the wording used as a political jab at the right ("pé direito" = literally "right foot," but also reads as a pun on "direita"/right-wing), idea further strengthened by the choice of Fernanda Torres herself, the winner of an Oscar for Ainda Estou Aqui (I'm Still Here), a film about resistance to Brazil's military dictatorship. Torres has also been vocal about her left-leaning political views, which critics used to reinforce their reading of the ad as ideological.
On the first trading day after a boycott call made by Eduardo Bolsonaro on Monday, Dec 22, 2025, Alpargatas' shares (ALPA4) fell 2.39%, closing at R$11.44. This translated into an estimated loss of R$152 million (~$28 million USD) in market value in a single day. A separate report shows an even sharper intraday move: ALPA4 down 3.07% to R$11.36 and ALPA3 down 2.59% to R$9.98 around midday trading, before the day's close.
Havaianas later removed the ad from all its social media channels, and, fortunately, shares showed early signs of recovering the next trading day (Dec 23), suggesting the market treated it as a short-term decline rather than a major flaw. While there are still no long-term sales figures, I can attest, as a Brazilian, that an astounding number of Brazilians chose to throw away their Havaianas and, to this day, don't purchase them anymore.
Emotion
Havaianas’ brand is completely tied to its "Brazilian Spirit,” framing it as vibrant colors, joy, fun, positivism, simplicity, and humor: all feelings people already associate with Brazil as a country. It relies heavily on consumer attachment (which can be why the controversy had such an impact on the brand), and a brand consultant explicitly described consumer attachment using the word "carinho" (affection in Portuguese). Even when entering international spaces, the company uses emotional triggers such as leaning on Brazil's football fame and beach imagery to resurface the perceived warmth and joy of the Brazilian people.
Habit Formation
The ~85% domestic market share mentioned earlier signals that the purchase has become automatic for Brazilians. When one brand dominates a category this heavily, it's a strong signal that most consumers aren't running through a mental comparison process every time they make a purchase, but in fact they're just habitually reaching for Havaianas the way people habitually grab a familiar toothpaste brand. While Habit Formation is essential to the brand, they don't shy away from new product drops and limited editions (like World Cup releases), which actually serve as a habit-refresh mechanism: habits can go stale without novelty, so, by refreshing the product just enough (new colors/editions) while keeping the core habit identical (same brand, same quality), Havaianas avoids habit fatigue.
It's interesting to mention that Havaianas' competitor Ipanema reportedly makes more anatomically comfortable flip-flops. However, Havaianas still dominates and is regarded as the most comfortable in the market. This further proves how much Habit Formation and Identity can truly shift the way consumers think of the product itself.
Conclusion
Looking at all of this together, what strikes me most is how little of Havaianas' success has to do with the sandal itself, since the rubber and the design never changed. What changed was everything around it: who wore it, what it was supposed to feel like, what it said about you. Havaianas never tried to sell a better or cheaper flip-flop; it sold Brazil, belonging, a Brazilian identity, and everything tied to it. As someone who grew up around this brand but never wore it, solely based on comfort, this analysis helped me to understand exactly how Havaianas’ brand identity was built, and how they became the global phenomenon they are today.
Sources
1. Khalpada, N., Lakhanpal, R., Moreira, L., Singh, J., & Sontakke, Y. (2012). Havaianas – International Expansion [Case study]. Business Today. https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/sites/media2/businesstoday/images/Havaianas-International-Expansion-BT-version.pdf
2. Metrópoles. (2025, December 23). Boicote à Havaianas: Alpargatas tomba e perde R$ 152 milhões em 1 dia. https://www.metropoles.com/negocios/boicote-a-havaianas-alpargatas-tomba-e-perde-r-152-milhoes-em-1-dia
3. InfoMoney. (2025, December 23). Alpargatas (ALPA4) cai 3% após boicote de Eduardo Bolsonaro à Havaianas. https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/alpargatas-alpa4-cai-3-apos-boicote-de-eduardo-bolsonaro-a-havaianas/
4. Times Brasil / CNBC. (2025, December 24). Ações da dona da Havaianas em queda após campanha polêmica. https://timesbrasil.com.br/brasil/acoes-da-dona-da-havaianas-em-queda-apos-campanha-polemica/
5. Osum. (2024, March 13). Havaianas target market explained. https://blog.osum.com/havaianas-target-market/
6. Christensen Institute. (2024, May 10). What the world's most iconic sandal can teach us about innovation. https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/what-the-worlds-most-iconic-sandal-can-teach-us-about-innovation/
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