Cuba - Guerrilla marketing

(AP): For decades there's been no such thing as a commercial radio or TV spot in Cuba, ditto for billboards, website banner ads and newspaper classifieds.



It can be a refreshing change from the global marketing onslaught, but the lack of traditional advertising opportunities creates a problem for the thousands of budding entrepreneurs who have embraced President Raul Castro's push for limited free-market reform.



It's one thing to open your own business, but how to let potential customers know you exist? True to Cuba's famous knack for making do, the island's small-business owners have turned to low-cost, unconventional advertising - a flurry of guerrilla marketing in a Marxist society whose founder, Fidel Castro, once denounced advertising as "alienating and noxious."



Since Castro opened up the door for more small businesses in the fall of 2010, the ranks of licensed entrepreneurs have swelled to more than 371,000 people. But few had any experience with capitalism after 50 years in a Marxist economy, and surviving cutthroat competition often meant overcoming an "If you build it, they will come" mentality.



editorial@gleanerjm.com