Michael Casey | The Image Mirror

CUBA AND THE BATTLE OF THE BRANDS

The Obama Administration’s modest lifting of sanctions on Cuba – ending a ban on Cuban-American travel and smoothing the way for telecommunications links – is best viewed as a marketing maneuver.

In terms of substance, it was thin. In letting Americans of Cuban descent – but not anyone else – visit the island, Obama had taken “just one step” toward improving bilateral relations, said Reuters. And as The Wall Street Journal noted, permitting U.S. telecoms to pursue links with Cuba would be “mostly symbolic,” at least for as long as Havana continues to limit incoming satellite, radio and fiber-optic traffic.

But as The Times wrote, although the move eased relations “only a crack,” it nonetheless constituted “the most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades.” That such a minimal change can be described so effusively in part reflects what economists call “coming off a low base” - the preceding, Cuban-American dictated policy posture was so rigid that any move in the opposite direction stands out. But it’s also because the endless trans-Florida Strait battle has long been defined by symbols. It’s a battle of brands, and Obama has just fired a salvo in it.

For years, Fidel Castro – and now his brother Raul – have made mileage out painting the U.S. as a heartless bully more interested in the narrow demands of a minority in Miami than in the well being of Cubans on the island. With its disingenuous sanctions, the U.S. has turned itself into a foil character in the Cuban Revolution’s myth-laden narrative, a story in which an heroic underdog stands up to an evil empire and with which the Castro regime builds a positive image, a marketable brand. But the truth is, it’s a constant struggle to prevent that idealized picture from being tarnished by the harsh reality of Cuba’s inequitable dual currency regime and its failed hybrid socialist-capitalist economy. The Cuban Revolution’s brand cannot stand on its achievements; it relies almost entirely on differentiating itself from its principal competitor. No wonder Cuban news agency Prensa Latina was quick to remind people in a statement attributed to the ailing Fidel Castro that Obama had said “not a word” about the “harshest of measures: the blockade.” (Official Cuban parlance prefers this militaristic depiction of the U.S. trade embargo.)

So, now, with this small change, Obama is following Cuba’s own strategy. He is fighting symbolic fire with symbolic fire. In the information age, gestures like this have the potential for great effect, albeit over time. They can ease deeply ingrained negative opinions of the U.S., not only in Cuba but in Latin America more broadly. As Richard Walden wrote in the Huffington Post, Cuba policy reform is “low-hanging fruit” for Obama – with popular opinion in the U.S. now strongly in favor, he has little to lose politically and much to gain.

What’s more, the target market for this tweak in the U.S. branding strategy goes far beyond 10 million Cubans. It encompasses 570 million Latin Americans. And by that standard, it has so far been a success. The announcement made front page news across Latin America Tuesday. Silvia Pisani of La Nacion in Argentina called it a “gesture for the region,” while Crítica, another Argentine daily, ran a doctored picture of Obama decked out in a beret with a red star under a red font, large-cap banner headline, “REVOLUTION.”

As if it weren’t any clearer that Obama is, like Castro, an adept brand manager, it’s noteworthy that he departed from his hitherto hands-on, commander-in-chief approach to news-making to let the relatively junior Dan Restrepo, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, announce the policy change. What was Obama doing at this time? Letting himself be photographed playing with the new White House resident, Bo the Portuguese Water dog. Joyful, vibrant images of the adoring pooch running alongside a smiling American president were dutifully picked up by the Latin American press (as well as by the U.S. media).

Still, it is way too early to pronounce a major improvement in the United States’ regional image. Too much negative image-building has been done over the past five decades, a history marked by such PR disasters as Washington’s support for corporate behemoths like United Fruit and Standard Oil, the CIA-backed 1956 Guatemala coup, Kissinger’s ties with South American dictators, the Iran-Contra scandal, and so on.

And Obama doesn’t have the Castro-like luxury of being the only figure dictating how the U.S. brand is perceived. That can pose problems, as was left plainly evident in the competing, above-the-fold story seen in various Mexican newspapers Tuesday: the Mexican Foreign Ministry’s objection to a Burger King campaign in Europe. The TV spot for a new “Texican Whopper” features a tall, cowboy hat-wearing man and a short WWF wrestler figure draped in a Mexican flag, his face covered by a matching mask. Its slogan, “United by Destiny,” seems a blatant whitewashing of Texans’ long, conflicted history with their neighbors across the border. There’s a long way to go.