Marketing and Reading Choices
I was having mixed feelings about the current Bacardí marketing campaign. The commercial is a classic Madison Avenue advertising formula. Associate a product with something or someone sexy. If it happens to be a woman who is "Othered," then that woman is generally also exoticized and eroticized. That to me is patronizing as hell, and puts me off no end. She may be feisty and passionate about her country's independence, which is a good thing, but using an American vision of romanticized sensuality as history to sell rum irked me a little. Oh, well. If the Bacardí family is okay with it, leave them to it.
The phrase "Cuba Libre" was used in the early years of Cuba's wars (there were actually three--the US got involved in the last one in 1898) for independence, but it was also picked up by the exile community over fifty years later. Thankfully, I suppose, there are fewer and fewer of my parents' generation left to feel the sting of that particular failure in their lives. The difference between an exile and an immigrant is that the exile expects to return. Or at least hopes to. That they have prospered is all well and good, but for my parents' generation, the knowledge that they are now dying without having returned has its own brand of pain in the midst of prosperity, after having buried their parents here. My mother confided to me once that she realized she would never see her home again when she looked out the window of the plane taking my father and her to Miami. As the white shore of the beaches of Varadero faded from her view, and the enormity, and for her the finality, of what they were doing sank in, I kicked her for the first time, she told me. Just a little over 20 years later, she would be dead and placed in a columbarium in Little Havana's western edge in Miami. Three out of my four grandparents are at that cemetery, as are my father's two older brothers and some of his cousins. Soon enough I will be seeing to my father's and my aunt's arrangements, as my cousins will be seeing to their remaining parents. We heard so much from them, chapter and verse. Once that last connection is gone, it will be interesting to see what courses the succeeding generations will plot without them.
The one thing I will say for the campaign is that it reminded me of a book I had been meaning to read, Bacardí and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, by Tom Gjelten. It was published in 2008. So my library card was flexed yet again. The history of that family and its business was closely tied to its country's struggle for independence at turn of the 19th into the 20th century, and was equally involved in the struggles against Fulgencio Batista two generations later, only to have their property nationalized by the very people they had supported. They moved their concern to Puerto Rico as a result and kept on distilling. I have maternal relatives who have worked there, both in Cuba and in Puerto Rico, so there is a personal element to my curiosity. I'm only four chapters in, but I am fascinated.
The Advertising Age article in the link is not quite accurate, however. It claims the bat icon came from the fruit bats in the rafters of the original distillery. According to the book:
The most distinctive element on a bottle of Bacardí rum is the peculiar icon at the top of the label: a black bat inscribed in a red circle. The bat's wings are outstretched, and its head is turned slightly to one side, highlighting its big eyes and pointy ears. No marketing executive today would allow such a creepy image to identify a popular brand. But the Bacardí symbol dates from an era when bats were viewed more tenderly, and the story of its adoption reflects the company's humble Cuban origins. Santiago was a small city full of merchants, slaves, and traders. Don Facundo's homemade rum was occasionally sold in recycled olive oil containers that came with a picture of a bat on the wax seal. As Bacardí rum gained in popularity, some customers in Santiago referred to it as el ron del murcíelago (the rum of the bat), and the association took hold.
For good reason. The bat was a symbol of good fortune, and it figured prominently in the heraldry of Don Facundo's native Catalonia. As creatures, bats exemplified the ideal of brotherhood, because they lived and flew together; they symbolized self-confidence, because they could fly in the dark without hitting anything; they stood for discretion, because they kept silent; and they represented faithfulness, because they always returned home.
--from the Preface, page 4
I'm glad for the distraction, since I've waded into the bureaucratic swampland that is the process of having my aunt qualify for Medicaid for her Long Term Managed care. I've told her about the book. If I can find it in Spanish, I'll check it out for her.
To paraphrase from yet another advertising campaign, stay thirsty, amigos.
The phrase "Cuba Libre" was used in the early years of Cuba's wars (there were actually three--the US got involved in the last one in 1898) for independence, but it was also picked up by the exile community over fifty years later. Thankfully, I suppose, there are fewer and fewer of my parents' generation left to feel the sting of that particular failure in their lives. The difference between an exile and an immigrant is that the exile expects to return. Or at least hopes to. That they have prospered is all well and good, but for my parents' generation, the knowledge that they are now dying without having returned has its own brand of pain in the midst of prosperity, after having buried their parents here. My mother confided to me once that she realized she would never see her home again when she looked out the window of the plane taking my father and her to Miami. As the white shore of the beaches of Varadero faded from her view, and the enormity, and for her the finality, of what they were doing sank in, I kicked her for the first time, she told me. Just a little over 20 years later, she would be dead and placed in a columbarium in Little Havana's western edge in Miami. Three out of my four grandparents are at that cemetery, as are my father's two older brothers and some of his cousins. Soon enough I will be seeing to my father's and my aunt's arrangements, as my cousins will be seeing to their remaining parents. We heard so much from them, chapter and verse. Once that last connection is gone, it will be interesting to see what courses the succeeding generations will plot without them.
The one thing I will say for the campaign is that it reminded me of a book I had been meaning to read, Bacardí and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, by Tom Gjelten. It was published in 2008. So my library card was flexed yet again. The history of that family and its business was closely tied to its country's struggle for independence at turn of the 19th into the 20th century, and was equally involved in the struggles against Fulgencio Batista two generations later, only to have their property nationalized by the very people they had supported. They moved their concern to Puerto Rico as a result and kept on distilling. I have maternal relatives who have worked there, both in Cuba and in Puerto Rico, so there is a personal element to my curiosity. I'm only four chapters in, but I am fascinated.
The Advertising Age article in the link is not quite accurate, however. It claims the bat icon came from the fruit bats in the rafters of the original distillery. According to the book:
The most distinctive element on a bottle of Bacardí rum is the peculiar icon at the top of the label: a black bat inscribed in a red circle. The bat's wings are outstretched, and its head is turned slightly to one side, highlighting its big eyes and pointy ears. No marketing executive today would allow such a creepy image to identify a popular brand. But the Bacardí symbol dates from an era when bats were viewed more tenderly, and the story of its adoption reflects the company's humble Cuban origins. Santiago was a small city full of merchants, slaves, and traders. Don Facundo's homemade rum was occasionally sold in recycled olive oil containers that came with a picture of a bat on the wax seal. As Bacardí rum gained in popularity, some customers in Santiago referred to it as el ron del murcíelago (the rum of the bat), and the association took hold.
For good reason. The bat was a symbol of good fortune, and it figured prominently in the heraldry of Don Facundo's native Catalonia. As creatures, bats exemplified the ideal of brotherhood, because they lived and flew together; they symbolized self-confidence, because they could fly in the dark without hitting anything; they stood for discretion, because they kept silent; and they represented faithfulness, because they always returned home.
--from the Preface, page 4
I'm glad for the distraction, since I've waded into the bureaucratic swampland that is the process of having my aunt qualify for Medicaid for her Long Term Managed care. I've told her about the book. If I can find it in Spanish, I'll check it out for her.
To paraphrase from yet another advertising campaign, stay thirsty, amigos.