Back to Basics? Visual and Discursive Strategies in Cuba’s Commercial Advertisement Practices

• In Event: Media, Trade Agreements, and National Security

Abstract

Since President Raúl Castro authorized small private businesses (locally known as “cuentapropistas”) to operate in Cuba in 2010, there has been a boom of non-governmental enterprises, mostly in the service sector, that are rapidly changing that nation’s economic landscape. This study explores commercial advertisement in the island, by inquiring into the rhetorical strategies (visual and verbal) that currently dominate ads for private products and services in the island, by comparing them against the long tradition of local promotional practices for state-run ventures since the 1960s, as well as against the development of Cuban advertisement before the revolution.
Our data consisted of a combination of a large sample of commercial ads collected in Havana in 2014, as well as in-depth interviews conducted with Cuban practitioners in the advertisement field. Based on Leiss’s (2005) theoretical framework in connection with different evolutionary stages of advertisement, we found that, while the most common strategies of commercial messages in Cuba in these days reflect an early “informational” phase in terms of verbal constructions, more sophisticated elements can be verified at the level of visual constructions and media placement. Still, contextual uncertainties regarding governmental regulations over the activities of small private businesses and the changing nature of target audiences in the domestic market operate as constraints for private advertisers to embrace more innovative approaches in the promotion of their products and services.

Authors

• Gisela C Gil-Egui, Fairfield University

• Rainer Rubira