Marca Perú: communicating Perú as a brand out of context

MARCA PERÚ: COMMUNICATING PERÚ AS A BRAND 1

Marca Perú: communicating Perú as a brand out of context

Paloma Baytelman

Department of Media, Culture, and Communication

New York University

December, 2012


Introduction

Imagine this situation: a red charter bus arrives to a small and quiet city in the middle of

the United States called Peru, in Nemaha County, Nebraska. When the bus stops, about 30

people descend from it. They are all Perúvians, not from Peru, Nebraska, but from Perú, the

Latin American Country. Perúvian filmmakers, world-renowned chefs, champion surfers and

celebrities are here to show how great is to be Perúvian through food, music, sports, and folkloric

traditions.1

This is the plot of the 15-minute video that the Ministry of Tourism of Perú created in

2011 as a part of a commercial campaign.2 The objective was to promote the image of the

country globally, but first the campaign look for encouraging national pride in Perúvians, and

therefore, make them feel as ambassadors of their country-brand. (Soldi 2012) The video was

launched online on May 5, 2011, and in his first week online, goes viral receiving more than

680,000 hits on YouTube. (Abourezk 2011)

Using common places, irony, dissimulation and contrast, this double edge propaganda

video provides rich material to illustrate and discuss concepts relate with identity, communities

and complexity of the stereotypes.

1 In order to make the distinction, in this essay I am going to refer as Perúvians (with accent mark) to those inhabitants of Perú, as a country in Latin America, and Peruvians (without accent mark) to those inhabitants of the city of Peru, in Nebraska, United States. 2 “Marca Perú 2011” (Official Version with English Subtitles) http://youtu.be/RL9gsVy9gfU


A national branding campaign for Perú

After diagnosing the international perception of Perú, the public relations arm of the

government came to appreciate that it was largely based on stereotypes and clichés. (Promperu

2011) In 2007 some Perúvian institutions related to the economy and tourism decided to solve

this image problem, hiring the international branding agency FutureBrand. This company

conduced an in-depth study showing the situation was not only affecting global markets, but also

revealed that Perúvians had a low perception of them-selves and of their own country. For them,

touristic, cultural and human aspects were somewhat favorable elements associated with the

image of Perú; while the educational, political and social issues were not highly valued.

(Promperu 2011)

Improving this self-image would be an important first goal before taking on the

international image of Perú. “The strategy taken to develop a unified national brand was to first

convince Perúvians on their own self-worth, before communicating this image on the world,”

explains Mariella Soldi, Director of Country Brand at Promperú. (Soldi 2012)

Lead by FutureBrand the project aimed to take advantage of the country’s growth and

crescent performance in matters of investment, exports and tourism, making visible Perú’s

multifaceted richness, that result of the combination of people, grounds, climates, goods and

opportunities. (FutureBrand 2011) To achieve these objectives a board was created, comprised of

representatives from Promperú (Commission for the Promotion of Perú Export and Tourism),

Proinversión (Agency promoting private investment in Perú), the Ministry of Foreign Trade and

Tourism, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They started to look at how to showcase Perú as an


interesting country, based on its people, culture, flavors, opportunities, products and places. It

was decided that the new country emblem would be its own name: Perú. The board began

working on campaigns related to Perú as a word, its consistency in different languages, the

accent mark, and the shortness of the term. As for the graphic design, it was inspired by motifs of

Perúvian ancient cultures, such as Cantalloc, Moche, Nazca and Inca, while they also sought for

an identity associated with a strong projection into the future.

In March 2011 the board introduced the new country brand “Marca Perú” and two

months later they launched an advertising campaign specifically created to raise awareness of the

national identity among Perúvians. The goal was to make them feel like proud country

ambassadors, before approaching World Markets. One of the most successful pieces of the

campaign was the video of Peru Nebraska.3

The plot: performance, irony and dissimulation

The video is based on the idea of this group of Perúvians—colorful, spicy and full of

rhythm—arriving in the other Peru to show why their Perúvian culture and traditions are worthy

of pride.

Although the story develops in a very natural way—as if the habitants of Peru, Nebraska

were surprised to receive these visits—the situation is clearly a performance prepared in advance;

it is a game full of irony that builds its message through contrast and dissimulation. There is

3 “Marca Perú 2011” (Official Version with English Subtitles) http://youtu.be/RL9gsVy9gfU


something about this performance that is deliberately fake and playful. While the plot is being

developed, we are fully aware of the game and the artifice: a false Perú is being performed.

Taking just some chosen aspect of Perúvian identity, the images dissimulate the fact that the real

Perú is not there. (Baudrillard 1994)

“Peru, Nebraska, has a problem: the inhabitants are Peruvians, but they don’t know what

that means.” This is one of the early sentences of the video that illustrates everything that the

Perú in Latin America is not: dull, plain, quiet, tasteless, nor lackluster. Via voice-over, as well

as the participation of prominent Perúvians, the video seeks to establish a maxim that all

Perúvians—even the Peruvians without the accent mark—should appreciate how wonderful it is

to be Perúvian. (Promperú 2011)

The delegation of Peruvians is led by Perúvian chefs Gastón Acurio, Christian Bravo,

Ivan Kisic and Javier Wong; artists Magaly Solier, Carlos Alcántara, Gonzalo Torres and Dina

Paucar; surfers Sofia Mulanovich and Gabriel Villarán; the tenor Juan Diego Flores and the

journalist Rafo León. Getting off the bus they shout: "You are from Peru, it's your right to eat

delicious food". (Promperú 2011) Then, the party started. Perúvians share with Peruvians

anticuchos, ceviche, chicha morada, ‘alpaca burger’, ‘lúcuma ice cream’, Perúvian pisco, cabrito

a la norteña, yuca, ‘huancaína Potatoes’, and Inca Kola (the best known Perúvian soda). On the

local dinner, they take out the ketchup and replace it with Perúvian spicy dressings. Performing a

huge fake wave with a blue plastic sheet, Villarán teaches how to surf, using a skateboard instead

of a surfboard. Peruvian Sheriff John McNorman is convinced to replace his donuts with

Perúvian picarones. In a Perúvian testing, Peruvians say that Inca Kola tastes like bubblegum,

and yuca like french fries. Dina Paucar, promotes her Huayno show with colorful posters all over


Peru. "Perú Negro" teaches their African-Latin-American rhythms, and Juan Diego Flores sings

on the local Peruvian radio station. In this way performance of dissimulation is created, trying to

turn Peru into a more Perúvian place (Baudrillard 1994).

This American Peru has started, to quote Jean Baudrillard, to "live in an universe

strangely similar to the original," (Baudrillard 1994, 11) if we concede that in this case the

“performed Perú”—that one with the accent mark—is the original, but dissimulated playing up

this false Perú to restore reality principle to Perú:

Therefore, pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the

difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the

difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary." (Baudrillard

1994, 3)

The permanent contrast shows that it is not intended to question, but to reinforce the real

and the fake and open up many possibilities to determine what is genuine and what is false here.

Indeed, the beauty of this drill is that it makes us fully aware of the game and the artifice.

The idea seems to be to bring to Peru the essence of the Perúvian nation as an imagined

community (Anderson 1991): sovereign through its customs, imagined while all Perúvians are

invited to feel and to be part of this identity, and with boundaries shown when Perúvians teach

Peruvians about Perú’s geographical advantages. (Promperú 2011)


Communicating identity in contrast

The video "Marca Perú" suggests a strong sense of identity, showing all the elements of

an imagined community: sovereignty, pride of belonging and boundaries. (Anderson 1991)

Thereby the campaign seeks to generate an emotional tie among Perúvians, showing things they

have in common, highlighting cultural belongingness. But the video does not highlight cultural

belongingness in a traditional way, but foregrounds it and contrasts it in what Stuart Hall (1996)

calls a narrativization of the self:

… it is only through the relation to the Other, the relation to what it is not, to precisely

what it lacks, to what has been called its constitutive outside that the 'positive' meaning of

any term - and thus its 'identity' - can be constructed. (Hall 1996, 4)

In fact, Perúvian identity arises here within a constructed fantasy, based on an imaginary

Perú, in a performance that emphasizes differences between Peru and Perú, establishing a

dialectical relationship between them.

The “Marca Perú” video generates those senses of identity and community first through

dissimulation, and second, through juxtaposition. Regarding dissimulation, in spite of the fact

that “nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time”

(Anderson 1991, 3), this video does not highlight the socio-political aspects of Perú's identity as

a nation, but focuses on other cultural elements, such as food, music, dance, folklore, literature

and sports. These cultural elements are shown in contrast to Peru, Nebraska—an “equal” in name,

but a distinct “other” because everything else.

Perúvians play themselves in a performance full of clichés, but hiding or excluding some

very important cultural aspects. This not only constitutes an irony, but also, as an entertainment


piece, makes it harder to criticize. (Zizek 2004, p. 200-204) Similar Kofi Agawu’s description in

“The Invention of African Rhythm”, in “Marca Perú” those clichés are created by Perúvians

themselves, so we cannot say they are being misrepresented. Therefore, the Perúvian identity is

here what Agawu would call an invention, a construction, a fiction, a myth, a lie. (Agawu 2003)

As a spectacle, the campaign represents the essence of what constitutes an identity, and

promotes feelings of identity. According to Guy Debord (1977), the importance of spectacle is

precisely in the deployment as society itself, as part of society, and as the meaning of unification,

making up this unreal reality (Debord 1977, p. 3). Through this performance, famous Perúvians,

are asking American-Peruvians to embrace being Perúvian, and actually encouraging “real”

Perúvians to embrace their own identity. “Nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-

sacrificing love. The cultural products of nationalism poetry, prose fiction, music, plastic arts -

show this love very clearly in thousands of different forms and styles.” (Anderson 1991, 141)

What this campaign ultimately does is employs the rhetorical formula used by Plato in

Phaedrus:

So, there is argument and counter-argument not only in the courts and places of public

assembly but it seems that in all cases of speaking there would be one and the same art of

some kind (if indeed it is an art) which enables someone to make everything similar to

everything else, provided that things are comparable and able to be compared and, when

someone else makes these similarities but hides the fact that he is doing so, to bring this

to light (Plato 2003).

Like Socrates, Hegel also brings up the relevance of this dialectical process between the

thing and the denial of the same, as the key method of attaining truth. For Hegel, in order to go


beyond sense certainties, it is necessary to first reach perception through the knowledge of the

senses, and then to the understanding, by thinking about the thing, to finally get to the reason or

absolute knowledge. This is only possible through the dialectical path of successive affirmations

and negations, to achieve a synthesis between being and nothingness, and thus determine the

essence of being (Hegel 1977).

In order to understand Perúvian identity from a Hegelian point of view, it is necessary to

comprehend what Perúvian identity is not; this is why the contrast between Perú and Nebraska is

so important--if we concede that Peru is the denial of Perú. That juxtaposition makes this

dissimulation evident, and also emphasizes the concept of the imagined community, which

Anderson claims constitutes the idea of a nation (Anderson 1991).

Perúvian Identity: stereotypes or archetypes

According to Anderson, a nation, as a cultural artifact, is “an imagined political

community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”. Following this logic, the

video seeks to generate or reinforce the belief that all Perúvians constitute one big community,

and it does it by juxtaposition and contrast (Anderson 1991, 32-33).

However, the video does not present any clear political dimension of Perú, a nation that is

far from a unitary homogeneous community. Rather, Perú is a racially, ethnically and socially

diverse one. In this multicultural context, social interactions among Perúvians have being

characterized by inequality and by the social exclusion of indigenous and other minority

segments of the population. (Espinosa 2011)


According to psychologist Agustin Espinosa, in Perúvian popular belief, national identity

seems to be a matter of circumstance rather than of emotional bonding. He claims that there is no

solid and strong national identity, but ambivalent stereotypes and self-views. “Some people

associate Perú as a troubled society with underdevelopment, backwardness and marginality,

other have high levels of positive identification with the country and a strong sense of

belonging”. (Espinosa 2011)

Espinosa asserts that in Perú, different ethnic and social groups give different

perspectives on what means to be Perúvian. The perception of Peruvian national identity is then

partly based on stereotypes and valuations made up by the different groups that make Perúvian

society. In fact, Perúvian society tends toward stereotyping and prejudice based on social and

ethnic characteristics, although there often appears to be no awareness or explicit recognition of

this.

Based on the above, it is reasonable to think that the relevant issue for this campaign was

to reinforce not the existence of a single national identity but on the possibility of achieving it on

the basis of a collective self-esteem, positive and inclusive.

As a part of its multicultural nature, Perúvian identity is related to the Andean world,

Amazon communities, colonial religious traditions, as well as African, Chinese, Japanese, Italian,

French and Spanish traditions. Although Perúvian cuisine is a reflection of this mixture, it is also

a symbol of collectiveness. Its folk music, for example, is one of the most diverse in the world,

with pre-Inca wind and percussion instruments mixed with moderns ones. Taking some of those

aspects, what “Marca Perú” does is to dissimulate stereotypes, while highlighting Perúvian

archetypes, using recognizable Perúvian symbols, such as famous people, well known food,


sports, music and folkloric traditions. Using common tropes—such as sending Perúvian black

musicians to spice up Peru—the video not only constitutes a cliché, but also a potential danger—

while some Perúvian characteristics are highlighted, other are totally undermined. As a case

study, “Marca Perú” shows how complex it is to use stereotypes—even in a dissimulated way—

in attempting to foster national identity pride.


References

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Promperú. «Documental Marca Perú 2011 (Versión Oficial de la Campaña Nacional).» May 12, 2011.

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1991.

Hall, Stuart. «Introduction: Who Needs 'Identity'?» in Questions of Cultural Identity, by Stuart Hall and

Paul du Gay, 1-17. London: Sage Publications, 1996.

Debord, Guy. The Commodity as Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red Books, 1977.

Plato. Phaedrus. Edit by Stephen Scully. Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2003.

Abourezk, Kevin. Peruvian commercial filmed in Nebraska goes viral. June 5, 2011.

http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_00de890e-257f-531c-acb2-b6928150b69d.html (accessed

November 27, 2012).

Soldi, Mariella. Director of Country Brand, Promperú (personal communication, October 12, 2012).

Promperu. «Marca Peru.» Presentation (unpublished) Lima, 2011.

FutureBrand. Country Brand Peru . 2011. http://www.futurebrand.com/work/featured-cases/country-

brand-peru/ (accessed November 26, 2012).

Espinosa, Agustin. Estudios sobre identidad nacional en el Perú y sus correlatos psicológicos, sociales y

culturales. (PhD Dissertation) San Sebastián: Universidad del País Vasco, 2011.

Zizek, Slavoj. «Politics: A Plea for Cultural Revolution.» En Organs without Bodies: On Deleuze and

Consequences, by Slavoj Zizek, 183-2013. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Agawu, Kofi. «The Invention of African Rhythm.» En Representing African Music, by Kofi Agawu. New

York: Routledge, 2003.

Marca Perú: communicating Perú as a brand out of context

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