one of the unique aspects of cuba that it took me a while to notice was the lack of commercial advertising. you can't walk down a street in london, new york or almost every other city in the world without seeing a bus, billboard or poster trying to sell you something. you see it so much that most of the time you don't really notice it. what with the political makeup of cuba it's not so surprising that they have an absence of this kind of advertising, however that doesn't mean there was a lack of billboards. the difference is the billboards in cuba are selling an ideology instead of hamburgers or shampoo. there were a lot of repeating catchphrases like patria o muerte and hasta la victoria siempre but one of my favourites was: discipline is the most important part of success - keeping it old school. i suspect the locals treat these messages the same way we treat our adverts, they just see it as part of the wallpaper. in addition to this propaganda the only other decorations on this wallpaper was street art - and this was one of the less-politicised pieces that didn't involve mister guevara - a rare find.

here's the original

one of the unique aspects of cuba that it took me a while to notice was the lack of commercial advertising. you can't walk down a street in london, new york or almost every other city in the world without seeing a bus, billboard or poster trying to sell you something. you see it so much that most of the time you don't really notice it. what with the political makeup of cuba it's not so surprising that they have an absence of this kind of advertising, however that doesn't mean there was a lack of billboards. the difference is the billboards in cuba are selling an ideology instead of hamburgers or shampoo. there were a lot of repeating catchphrases like patria o muerte and hasta la victoria siempre but one of my favourites was: discipline is the most important part of success - keeping it old school. i suspect the locals treat these messages the same way we treat our adverts, they just see it as part of the wallpaper. in addition to this propaganda the only other decorations on this wallpaper was street art - and this was one of the less-politicised pieces that didn't involve mister guevara - a rare find.

here's the original