I always remember that report published in an edition of Somos Jóvenes magazine in the late 1980s, which analyzed the propaganda of the Union of Young Communists. It featured a slogan that read: “We are happy here,” painted on a cemetery wall in Havana.
I recall it now because our propaganda effectiveness is almost always questioned. Since designers are confident that the message’s recipients will assimilate the content. As that journalistic piece said, “Perhaps they are so happy that the dead don’t want to leave the cemetery walls.”
With the change in the social system on January 1st, 1959, advertising was scorned. Considered a technique that spent a lot of money to stimulate consumerism. But the positive aspects of this practice for the good of a more humane and just society were not taken into account.
Some with considerable political power forgot the “Law of the Negation of the Negation.” Which states that one should discard all negative aspects and embrace the positive ones of the previous society. They failed to channel the positive elements of advertising along the socialist path and instead exploited propaganda to gain more adherents to Marxism-Leninism.
However, they did no better than the advertisers who focused more on stimulating the consumption of soaps like the famous Candado Brand. Which raffled off houses to those who found a small ball containing a slip of paper that revealed the current prize.
Years have passed, and Cuba has gone through many stages in its economic development. Like any nation that needs to export its products to diverse markets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. It found itself needing to further develop its marketing strategies to promote its rum, tobacco, tourism industry, music, biotechnology, sports consulting, and medical collaboration. Among other products and services that it exports.
Starting in August 1993, the Cuban economy found itself needing to develop a domestic market to raise foreign currency. This led to the creation of the so-called Foreign Currency Collection Stores (TRD). Which soon became known simply as “shopping malls.” From that moment on, it became necessary to dust off old techniques and assimilate new marketing strategies. This phase has returned recently due to the need to attract hard currency in the local market amidst a struggling economy.
The path from marketing to reality is narrow.
When a Cuban consumer enters a store, they see a sign that reads: “The customer is the most important thing.” But sometimes you’re standing at the counter, and no one is there to help you. The person who works in that department hasn’t arrived. They’re in a meeting, they’re looking for the correct Price. It’s lunchtime, and you have to wait or call to get served quickly.
Some consumers, like the one writing these lines, have developed white lies and argue: “Please, can you help me? I’ve snuck out of the office and I don’t want the boss to catch me off guard.”
The fact is, some hard-currency stores have the same office hours as most jobs in Cuba. So there’s no other option but to violate the workday. Declared sacred by the Ministry of Labor and others who consider wages so sanctified that they don’t raise them in the face of current inflation.
Futhermore those who have received a raise were so long ago they can’t remember the exact date. Motivated by marketing, this journalist went in search of marketing practices in the sphere of state and private services. It turns out that in so-called micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Most employees are trusted by the owner and very good at counting money. But they lack marketing skills or, having taken courses, are unwilling to apply them in practice due to the difficulties of the current economic crisis.
Another problem is that the Cuban domestic market for goods sold in foreign currency lacks variety. In both the number of producers and brands of the same product. For example, if you find a jar of peanut butter, and it’s the only brand available. It costs the same in every chain of stores that sell goods in foreign currency.
Since most Cubans have to buy foreign currency at the exchange houses called CADECA or on the informal market. Because they don’t receive salary incentives in hard currency or remittances from abroad, they prefer the cheapest products. However, soaps, detergents, salt, spaghetti, butter, floor mats, and even toilet paper, which are somewhat “more affordable.” Suffer shortages, and these same high-end products don’t decrease in price at all to encourage purchases by lower-income consumers in Cuban society.
The Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, held in April 2011, called for improvements to the Cuban economy. Because socialism cannot be built in the largest of the Antilles without economic efficiency.
Yet, there are still “entrepreneurs” who wait for guidance from the central government and don’t develop initiatives to improve their businesses. Also to make them profitable, and export more products for an economy that cannot afford to import more than it exports. The agreements reached at the Sixth Congress of the PCC were clear. Unprofitable factories and companies with overstaffed employees cannot be maintained. So because no economy in the world can tolerate it. An economic system that generates more losses than income cannot be sustained because it would bankrupt the country.
I recently read an article on Yahoo! News about marketing and tricks to increase sales. Shopping carts in Spanish supermarkets are larger so that consumers will put more items in them. The smell of freshly baked bread is diffused through the central air conditioning because they know that when you’re hungry, you buy more.
They place the least popular products at the entrance and the most in-demand ones further away. Also the most expensive brands are at eye level on the shelves. Moreover they control the music: during peak hours it’s faster. And during off-peak hours it’s calmer and slower, according to Yahoo! News.
Furthermore, prices in Spanish supermarkets are never round numbers to make them seem cheaper. At the same time, make comparisons more difficult. Furthermore, they almost always end in 5, 7, or 9, the numbers that most attract shoppers.
Spanish marketing specialists also claim that large stores are designed to make us stop constantly. The reasoning behind these interruptions is that every time we stop, we focus our gaze on a producto. Making it more likely to end up in our shopping cart.
From all these Spanish marketing tricks, we should take what’s most appropriate for Cubans and our reality. Which also needs to declare VIPs many consumers who prefer a store, a café, or a hotel because they are treated better as human beings and customers.
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