How Target’s Che became a target

The image of Che Guavara, sporting a beret with a single star on it, has been popular since his execution in 1967 in Bolivia, where he tried to mastermind a communist uprising.
The photo was taken by Alberto Diaz (aka “Korda”) and became iconic.
Since Guavara's death, his portrait was put on everything from posters and T-shirts to schoolbags.
Che became a symbol of idealistic revolt for many, including students taking part in the 1968 Paris uprising in 1968 and Palestinians launching terrorist attacks against Israel in 2000.

As part of Target's positioning as a trendy discount chain, it decided to tap into the motley of symbols of retro cool, following the current trend at populate flea market stalls as well as in chic designer boutiques.
Target featured Che’s image on a music CD carrying case, wearing a set of small earphones, thus implying that he was tuned in to trendy music players such as iPod.

Target was not the first company to choose Che: Swatch put Guevara on a wristwatch and Smirnoff vodka featured the picture in an advertising campaign.

What Target didn't take into account, was the sensitivity of its Latin customers.
Guevara as a romantic hero is a myth.
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (aka Che Guevara or el Che) decided as a medical student, that the socioeconomic inequalities in Latin America could only be remedied by revolution.
He became a Marxist and joined Fidel Castro's paramilitary 26th of July Movement, which seized power in Cuba in 1959.
He served in various important governmental posts.
In this capacity, Guevara signed at least 600 death warrants and executed children by firing squads.
According to the Investor's Business Daily, Guevara was responsible for at least 2,000 deaths during Cuba's 1961 mass executions.
The Cuban exile community in the US collectively took a stand against sporting Che’s image on Target's merchandize.
The story quickly hit the newswires and numerous blogs pounced on it.
They stated that Guevara was one of history's brutal mass murderers, in the same league as Pol Pot, Pinochet, Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler.

Showing excellent crisis management, Target Corp quickly pulled all the CD cases from its shelves and issued an apology.
"It is never our intent to offend any of our guests through the merchandise we carry. We have made the decision to remove this item from our shelves and we sincerely apologize for any discomfort this situation may have caused our guests."

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady applauded Target’s reaction, stating that Target made an "admirable decision" to correct the actions of some company employees who "allowed Target to become a target itself of the Che myth."

The irony of it all is, that Guevara’s iconic portrait is commercially used in the same capitalist consumer society that he died fighting to overturn…

The Brilliant Branding of Borat

When it comes to branding, standup comedians are champions.
They create characters that take on a life of their own.
Mike Myers “Austin Power” is a good example how to create a character, brand it and turn it into a major money making machine.

But the one that excels at this game is without any doubt the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
He created the character “Borat Sagdiyev”, a Kazakh television news reporter making a meager living in the struggling country of Kazakhstan.
Dressed in his trademark grey suit, a mustached Borat tells the world in heavy accented English about his beautiful home country of Kazakhstan (a urine-drinking, Jew-hating, inbred society).
The Borat character is homophobic ("Are you a homo sapiens? Because it doesn't matter if you are."), misogynic (at a feminist gathering, he "innocently" extolled the virtues of Baywatch) and anti-Semitic (“my city is 3 mile north of fence to Jewtown”)
Cohen also launched a website www.borat.kz, which was promptly shut down by a highly offended Kazakh government.
It was rerouted to www.borat.tv.
If you look at the website, it is exactly in character and pokes fun at all the standard elements and mistakes that can be found on personal websites: black background color, emoticons, flash, common spellings mistakes, (ir)relevant photos, personal profile, MySpace.
Following the Comedy Store formula, Cohen capitalized on his character’s success by making a movie, aptly titled: “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”.

The movie was cleverly promoted by putting trailers on YouTube.
The main push however came from the personal appearance of the movie’s shining star.

The movie was first shown at the Cannes film festival.
Cohen, always acting as Borat, appeared on a beach in Cannes, dressed in a minimalistic bathing suit that resembled (as the Jaunted website put it) “an upside down Star Trek symbol”.
The pics were beamed across the globe.

Cohen repeated his performance at the London movie premiere.
Staying non-stop in character, he wowed the crowds by stating:
"I have come here with Bilak, my 11 year old son, his wife and their child, and we are hoping maybe to put some chocolate make-up on the child's face and sell him to Madonna.
I am hoping that Madonna will be a very good father for it."
He was, of course, referring to the singer's controversial adoption of a 13-month-old Malawian baby.

For the US launch, Fox studios decided to downsize the initial release of "Borat" from 2,200 screens to 800 because their marketing analysis determined most of middle America wasn't going to "get it”.
During its first weekend, the movie raked in a record $26.4 million in 837 locations.
Since the production budget was under $ 20 million, the movie was able to reach profitability within 3 days.
At the beginning of December 2006, the movie generated $67 million.

Borat got the kind of exposure most A-list actors could only dream of.
He appeared on CNN, FOX, Letterman and O'Brien– to mention just a few.

For the Australian film premiere, Borat adapted to the Aussie way by greeting fans sporting cricket batting pads and a corked hat while holding a boomerang and later cradling a wallaby.
If anyone understands: “think global, act local”, it’s Cohen.