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Lecture on Habano marketing, delivered by Ana Lopez, Marketing Director with Habanos, S.A.
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Experts from the Tobacco Research Institute in Vuelta Abajo during an on-the-spot master class on farming and sanitary care of this crop.
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The graduation: the most anticipated moment.

Devised as a three-level training system – Master, Junior and Senior – and aimed at putting across a standardized message on Habano (D.O.P.), this initiative also seeks to beef up communication on this exclusive product for staffers of Habanos, S.A.’s exclusive distributors around the world, and from them down to retailers and employees in the different sale outlets all the way to the end customers.

As a concept, the Habanos Academy wants would-be masters to see and touch with their own hands everything related to tobacco, from the field to the factories.

Even though our distributors and experts linked to the marketing of Cuban premium tobacco were always offered training opportunities, this initiative is a whole lot higher in terms of level and outreach,” says Ana Lopez, Marketing Director with Habanos, S.A. “But it also comes at the right time if we bear in mind the complex environment currently surrounding followers, lovers and aficionados of Habanos in the world, hit hard by restrictions in some markets that barely make room for those who want to enjoy them nor open up possibilities in public communication, something that of course makes a dent in the marketing process.” For Cuba, the birthplace of Habano and home to the rich centennial history and tradition this product has to offer, training in the Master category is reserved for the island nation. Its graduates – in 2011 and 2012 – were certified as Trainers and are now entitled to organize both Junior and Senior courses in their own markets, in close collaboration with Habanos, S.A., the Academy’s highest-ranking authority. The company’s products make up 71 percent of the premium cigar offers worldwide, with values accounting for 80 percent of all sales. Habanos, S.A. owns over 140 franchised stores in the five continents and is represented in more than 150 countries. It currently works with 50 distributors, 41 of them labeled as exclusive. At a world level, the company counts on other spaces of its own, like Habano Experts, Cohiba Atmosphere and Smokers’ Rooms, which together with Casas del Habano combine to be the right places where people can buy, smoke, expose and wallow in the tradition and history of Habano. According to Daymi Difurniao, a Habanos, S.A. hostess in the early editions of the Habano Academy in Cuba for the Master category, “for this initiative we decided to open up the gates of Habano’s fascinating world, from the field to the factories and the marketing process, because the idea is to make participants to see it all, to touch everything with their own hands in an effort to increase their knowledge, faithfulness and defense of this peerless product.” And the company’s expert went on to say: “Anyone can say time and again that Cuba’s tobacco is the best in the world, but it’d make much more sense and it’s be far more convincing to get to explain and contribute to spread this product with clarity and strong arguments. That’s what we want our graduates to do in their own markets and sale outlets, and they’d become trainers who could even teach courses in the Junior and Senior categories, thus acting as efficient promoters of the Habano phenomenon based on the culture and specialization they can acquire.” Habanos, S.A. was founded in 1994 and is the exclusive marketer of this product that boasts a Protected Denomination of Origin (D.O.P. is the Spanish acronym) that reserves the right to qualify cigars heavier than 3 grams “completely hand-rolled” in Cuba, in line with the guidelines established by the island nation’s tobacco industry and certified by the Habano Regulatory Council. This applies to Cuban black tobacco species grown in specific regions – also holding D.O.P. status – with a portfolio that embraces 27 brands y 85 factory vitolas, 250 store or commercial vitolas and over 350 references. The tobacco plantations, the figure of the tobacco planter as depository and lead player of a longstanding farming tradition, the treatment of harvested leaves and the wick removal process, the work in the factories through its different steps and processes all the way to the final moment when leaves are rolled into Habanos are all major parts of the Academy. Brands and vitolas, denominations of origin and their differences, crossed tasting sessions, sensorial and burning tryouts, the strengths of the Habanos, more tastings, matching and pairings, marketing-oriented topics, the authenticity of the product, storage, the need to keep containers with all the attributes provided by Cuba, the warranty seal, among many other issues, are also part of the teaching plans. Given its strategic significance, the Academy’s Master level also pays close heed to the image of the Habano, the brand protection and the defense of its value as a traditional economic resource, lines of study that should also have all the attention they can get in each and every market from those who, in one way or another, are linked to the sale and marketing of this product.

For your complete and updated information on The World of Habano – published by the Regulatory Council of Protected Denomination of Origin (D.O.P.) Habanos and other Cuban tobacco industry’s entities – this is the ruling document of the Habanos Academy. There are plans in the offing to print all editions in as different languages as required by the Habano’s wide world market and start the distribution of the first copies in the course of 2012. The publisher of this book is the institution that gathers all organizations responsible with outlining the guidelines for the production of tobacco and cigars in Cuba, from the plantations all the way to the Habano boxes. Moreover, it deals with all legal aspects related to the Cuban tobacco denominations of origin recognized in the 1958 Lisbon Agreement applied to the production and marketing of Habanos all around the world. It’s made up of: Tabacuba, the National Association of Petit Farmers, the Tobacco Storage and Improvement Company and the Tobacco Research Institute (it includes the National Tasting Commission, Cubatabaco and Habanos, S.A.).