BRASCUBA has given itself a name as a world-class leading producer of top-quality cigarettes. Its vast portfolio of products reaches out to consumers with a quality seal stamped on it: they are made with Cuban tobacco, the finest in the world.

In little more than a decade, this Cuban-Brazilian joint venture formed by Souza Cruz –Brazil’s leading cigarette-making company and a member of the British American Tobacco (BAT)- and TABACUBA, of Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture, have managed to put the image of its products up to par with those of its world market competitors.

Winner of several Quality Gold Medals in international fairs and creator of a new image strategy in the Spanish market for Popular, one of its most successful brands, BRASCUBA is ready for the tenth edition of the Habano Festival.

Leila Medeiros, the company’s Marketing Director for the past couple of years, believes the ongoing strategy is hitting the right chord. “It’s a shift in visual identity in which the habits of consumers, market trends and the product’s attributes have been taken into account,” she says.

This is quite a challenge if we bear in mind the many restrictions that today keep the cigarette-making industry under wraps in terms of publicity. According to Mrs. Medeiros, “BRASCUBA is appealing to consumers’ assumption that if cigars rolled with Cuban black tobacco are the best in the world, then cigarettes ought to be as good as cigars. In terms of publicity, we handle such icons as tobacco leaves, old-vintage cars from the 1950s and other elements associated to Cuba’s Popular cigarettes.”

The result? In January 2008 this brand posted a 12 percent increase in sales with over 300 million cigarettes sold in the Spanish market every year. These figures make Popular one of the four bestselling brands in that country in the black tobacco niche.

“The streamlining and alignment of our new Popular design in Spain to make it match with pack designs in Cuba has put this product on the trail of the bestselling international brands, coupled with the fact that it contains a very distinctive top-quality tobacco and it creates a strong association with a destination like Cuba, so coveted in Spain for the value of its people and its culture,” Mrs. Medeiros points out.

But BRASCUBA has also beefed up its marketing stance in different countries following the granting of a license in 2007 to export the Cohiba brand across the board in the world market. Sales of over 400 million cigarettes from the Popular, Cohiba and Romeo & Juliet brands in such places as Mexico, Ecuador, Hong Kong, Austria, Portugal and South Africa, speak volumes of those outcomes.

To Leila Medeiros, this “in crescendo” commercial bonanza rounds up favorably her experience in the Cuban market. “That’s something very special due to the educational level of the people, not only from a managerial standpoint, but also in the productive field in which you can find professionals with a say, with vast knowledge of the product, people who love their jobs and have taught me a lot in this country, especially about a one-and-only product that has no match in the rest of the world: Cuba’s black tobacco.”