Brand Cuba

Brand Cuba
By MICHAEL CASEY
March 11, 2008; Page A21

As Fidel Castro brings his reign in Cuba to a long overdue end, we are
left to ponder how a leader with such a dismal economic record could
retain power for a half-century.

There is merit to many of the standard explanations for Castro's
longevity -- both those of his critics, who cite political repression,
and those of his fans, who believe the Cuban majority was won over by
advances in health and literacy. There is also some merit in the
arguments blaming Washington, either for its self-defeating trade
embargo or for not being tough enough.
[Brand Cuba]

But these only tell part of the story. Instead, if we view Castro's
political machine through the apolitical prism of the market, we can
attribute its durability to a concept that's alien to his socialist
rhetoric, and deeply rooted in the American capitalist system he claims
to despise: branding. Castro's political "success" is a case study in
managing the global information economy.

The Cuban Revolution is and always has been a brand. Its face has
changed over time -- from the "barbudo" rebels of the Sierra Maestra to
Che Guevara's piercing stare, from Cuba's graying salsa legends to its
globe-trotting medics -- but incredibly, its essence has survived.

Marketing gurus tell us that a successful brand functions as a store of
values. It encapsulates a pool of attractive ideas that satisfy
customers' desire for meaning. To encourage loyalty to a brand, they
say, the marketer must cultivate a sense of belonging and personal
identification with the individual.

For many within a core constituency of left-leaning, relatively
well-educated people both inside and outside Cuba, Castro's "revolution"
achieved precisely this. To this niche market, Cuba evokes a set of
magical buzz words long-favored by the radical left: "resistance,"
"social justice," "struggle." It represents an idealized, selfless
counterpoint to ruthless, greedy capitalism. It is the alternative to
brand U.S.A.

This is, of course, a constructed "Cuba," one with little relation to
the real Cuba, with its dysfunctional, increasingly inequitable social
and economic structure. But savvy brand managers are rarely hindered by
a divergence from reality. Has the availability of perfectly safe, free
tap water stopped marketers from touting the life-giving powers of their
bottled alternatives?

Castro has long been blessed with a great ability to manipulate
information and images in the interest of self-promotion. During a
pivotal 1957 interview with New York Times correspondent Herbert
Matthews, he had his men move around in the trees to create the illusion
of a bigger rebel force. Five decades later, the art had not deserted
him. After his intestinal illness was first revealed in July 2006, the
delayed, staggered release of photos of the convalescing Cuban leader in
an Adidas tracksuit seemed designed to give his archenemies enough rope
to hang themselves. Many Miami Cuban bloggers prematurely pronounced
Castro dead and denounced the first images as fakes.

In the early 1960s, Castro was forever trailed by a clique of talented
photographers -- including Alberto Korda, who took the most famous photo
of Che Guevara. Preferring Life magazine's documentary style over the
bleak genre of Soviet socialist realism, they portrayed the bearded
Cuban leader in a humanistic light, and gave his revolution a vibrant,
hopeful and distinctly American aesthetic.

Later, when CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers killed Guevara in 1967 --
converting the Argentine-born revolutionary into a martyr-hero for Paris
and Berkeley radicals -- Castro wrapped himself in the image of his
former comrade-in-arms, which conveniently helped him cover up Cuba's
very un-revolutionary submission to Soviet dominance. The Cuban
government actively promoted Korda's iconic image, which the country's
poster artists soon gave a Pop Art makeover. The now-ubiquitous Che
brand was born.

Years later, in the 1990s, branding helped hide the wealth divide and
graft in Cuba that arose out of the post-Soviet dual-currency system.
Decrepit Havana was marketed as a giant museum, a revolution frozen in
time -- complete with rusted '50s Chevys and octogenarian musicians.
Later, with the rise of the anti-globalization movement, Che was
re-resurrected in a pitch to younger tourists, one that came with
Cuban-made calendars, watches, postcards and all manner of trinkets
bearing Korda's image.

Now Cuba's brand centers on health care. Its free hospitals are depicted
as alternatives to an unfair, inefficient U.S. system, while its
foreign-posted doctors put a face on the country's projected spirit of
humanitarianism.

Some 200 of these medics turned up at last October's 40th anniversary of
Che's execution in La Higuera, Bolivia. They demonstrated how the Cuban
revolution's brand has been simultaneously altered and preserved through
a period of sweeping transformation on the island and in the world
outside it.

These doctors -- members of a 30,000-strong foreign medical corps, whose
work gives Havana access to badly-needed goods like Venezuelan oil --
are unwittingly contributing to a mounting problem back home. Their
absence exacerbates staffing constraints in Cuba's once well-regarded
hospitals, now stretched by the demands of an aging population.
Nonetheless, in the long string of speeches at La Higuera, Cuban,
Venezuelan and Bolivian officials feted the physicians as model
revolutionaries -- guerrillas with stethoscopes in place of rifles. And
in case the branding tie-in wasn't clear, each medic was dressed in a
white lab coat opened to reveal a red or blue Che T-shirt.

Mr. Casey is Dow Jones Newswires bureau chief in Buenos Aires, and
author of "Che's Afterlife," a forthcoming book to be published by
Vintage on Alberto Korda's famous image of Che Guevara.

Write to Michael Casey at michael.j.casey@dowjones.com

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