The second edition of El Pitch Festival, a meeting on marketing and digital communication for enterprises, will take place in Havana on March 2 and 3. Its organizer, the entrepreneur and communicator Katia Sánchez, spoke with OnCuba about the call for this free-access event.
Sánchez is the founder of La Penúltima Casa project and is the host of the El Pitch podcast, which gives its name to the festival and focuses on communication based on entrepreneurship. Even though she is very young, thanks to her work in recent years she has accumulated experience in the field that makes her an authoritative and leading voice in this field, having advised established or small emerging enterprises and other businesses in Cuba.
What is La Penúltima Casa?
La Penúltima Casa was created as a small blog in 2019 and then we mutated into an agency and began to expand the number of services and products we offered. Then, the entrepreneurship sector came to us little by little, it came to us with the El Pitch podcast, and this made us manage to combine what it means to do communication, marketing, advertising, with what is being done from the entrepreneurship sector, the entrepreneur community in Cuba. Which, in addition, has grown a lot and has seen a lot of changes and transformations for the better, for its strengthening and development.
The festival arises in 2021 primarily to unite entrepreneurs from many parts of Cuba. We had 11 provinces represented in 2021. It was also online, because we were in the middle of the pandemic; we were one of the very few events that were held in Cuba at that time. And we had 400 registered, we brought speakers from 4 countries. The idea was to know tools, technical strategies, knowledge, it was the main thing.
But there was also the fact of connecting, because the entrepreneurial communities in Cuba and communication professionals are very dispersed. Additionally, to generate alliances and opportunities.
Basically, it is a meeting point that was very challenging. And now in 2024, now without a pandemic, now with a new panorama in the entrepreneurial sector, we said: “Well, let’s repeat it; let’s see how it goes.”
And that is why we created this edition of El Pitch Festival, which also brings a greater number of speakers, more diversity. We already have registered people from all the provinces of the country. And we have people signing up from other countries. We have about 11 countries among those registered; many of them are Cubans in other countries who want to be part. We defend the idea that entrepreneurship can be carried out from anywhere, from any point, and that the festival ultimately contributes to the growth of all the people involved.
Could you mention, advancing the program a little, some of these international speakers? Who would be some of the most attractive?
In the first festival we had speakers from the United States, Argentina, Spain, Cuba. Now they will all be international, from six countries: Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Venezuela and the United States. In addition, there are ten who will be at the online event. Among them we have, for example, the director of Podcasteros, which is the largest community of Spanish-speaking podcasters.
We have the founder of Latinas en SEO, which is also a super important, regional community that brings together women in digital spaces. (I’m not naming names because we haven’t published them yet).
We have a very good speaker, from the United States, who implemented a methodology to integrate artificial intelligence into the large-scale content creation process and thus create a huge amount of content for marketing agencies or any other type.
Anyway, we have a lot of topics, such as project management, we have SEO of course, web positioning, we are going to talk about content generated by the user of social media, organic and paid.
There are some things that I would say that do not fit so much with what we have today in the Cuban reality. For example, when we talk about paid content on social media, because we know that in Cuba the option to promote posts on social media is banned. But we are trying to open up and look for insights from different parts; ultimately, that’s where we’re going. It wasn’t bad to include things that perhaps we don’t have now, but at some point we will. Also, taking into account that many participants are not in Cuba or do not reside in Cuba right now.
In addition, we have speakers who are coming to Cuba from the United States and Argentina, and who will also acenterprise us in the face-to-face space, which will be a more closed event, for leading figures or specialists in the field of marketing, communication, and entrepreneurship and also businesses and projects with good practices in this field.
Now that you mentioned some limitations for the promotion of content or business, what other limitations of the Cuban context can you identify from your experience and what solutions have new ventures or you as advisors given?
We have, of course, a lot of limitations that start with the connectivity and speed of the Internet connection in Cuba. I mean, sometimes, we say that we are crazy doing digital communication if we don’t have the Internet. I think it is the main problem that we face when we have to do something online, and it is something that we are preparing for in this festival, because it has special characteristics to make people in Cuba with low Internet speed or with little access to data because it is expensive can be part. We are using some techniques that we are replicating from the 2021 edition and that worked very well.
Besides that, there are other limitations. For example, accessing paid content, paying for tools, entering websites that are blocked for Cuba. And above all, the payment mechanisms for people who are in Cuba become very complex and this affects professionals who work in communication, marketing, and advertising, who have to make certain payments for tools, right now many of them artificial intelligence that are paid, such as ChatGPT4 or Canva AI. Or to establish a mechanism for the entry and exit of money, that is, being able to collect and make payments to and from abroad, is a huge limitation that almost all entrepreneurs here have. So, of course the Cuban context is different from other realities. But that is precisely why we have the Festival.
The speakers are very aware of our context and we are trying to make them know a little about the dynamics of Cuba, because generally we are isolated. Not much is known about the reality of Cuba and what is happening in other places. The festival is a good opportunity to connect professionals, entrepreneurs here, with these foreign notions that they will share with us.
There are those who would say that in such a precarious technological context, perhaps celebrating a festival focused on artificial intelligence sounds like a very long leap. Do you have experience with Cuban startups that have worked with the integration of artificial intelligence into their businesses, into their digital communication?
Yes, totally. But, in addition, we at the agency use at least 6 artificial intelligence tools to create content alone. This is not something that we say is the future and at some point Cuba is going to get there. No, it’s already here, it is no longer innovative to talk about artificial intelligence. It is the present; it is the reality that we have.
As I mentioned, there is a speaker who has an agency that only works with artificial intelligence, it is his specialty, so there are already business models based on artificial intelligence. Of course, it may sound a bit like science fiction if we are very behind on that, but I think that here the changes have occurred at a dizzying rate since in 2018 we massively entered the Internet through mobile data. We are in 2024 and how many things have happened to us after that!
That is to say, it has been such a dizzying change that we cannot sit back and wait or see when it gets to Cuba. We can talk about the topic now. There are tools that can be used, there are things we can do. We have VPN. In other words, to do this live broadcast I need to use VPN because for Cuba it is a banned platform and we are doing it. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that being an entrepreneur here — I think it’s a general motto, but in Cuba it applies very well — is to continually look for alternatives to solve problems and be able to continue developing. So, look, artificial intelligence is here. There are books, there are artificial intelligence courses made in Cuba. La Penúltima Casa is also the first — and only so far — media in Cuba that participates in the AI Journalism Academy for small newsrooms.
In short, we are innovating on the issue, we are working on the issue. And no, don’t sit there and wait for what’s going to happen, because what’s going to happen if you sit there is that you’re not going to find out and everyone is going to be talking and doing things and you’re not going to see it implemented. So yes, we bring it with great pride.
Another vision, far from thinking that it is the future, fears that artificial intelligence has already arrived and it is a matter of time before it displaces many humans from the labor market; far from this approach of integrating it into your purposes as an enterprise, they see these platforms as those that will become content creators and will replace the work that those of us who create text, image, video, digital communication do. What do you think about this and why did they choose the approach of integrating artificial intelligence into the purposes of the enterprise and not fearing it as an enemy, as an advance that is going to overtake us and is going to be another technological change that is going to leave many of us out of the market?
Well, it is a debate, and I think that debate has been repeated every time there is a technology that is this disruptive. It seems to me that it depends on how you see it, but it has more to do with seeing artificial intelligence from the job role.
That is, if you are working within a large enterprise in a department where there are 10 journalists and they begin to use artificial intelligence tools to support that work, they will probably now need 3 instead of 10. They will definitely need fewer people to do that job. But, be careful, that has happened every time a technology comes out. It has been part of history.
However, as a professional, as an entrepreneur, there is much more you can do. Your productive capacity increases greatly if you use artificial intelligence tools. I don’t see it so much as whether it replaces us or not, but rather how it fits within roles and work models in general.
As a professional, I can now make content that used to take 3 hours in 20 minutes; because I have tools at my disposal that allow me to increase my productivity, that allow me to be more effective, where I can do a series of things. And on the other hand, I can complete a series of processes that were much more disjointed before, so to speak.
As professionals we do not have to be afraid of artificial intelligence. Quite the opposite. In other words, the sky is the limit for the number of things we can do. And I’m super excited. Furthermore, every time I discover a tool and start trying it and I see how much work it saves me and how well it turns out…. I want to apply it to myself, to my work processes because I see how much it is helping me and how productive I can be, how good that is also for our income, from an entrepreneurial point of view. It’s also great for business.
No fear and a lot of getting to know it, studying it, understanding, of course, its limits, its biases, its risks, which are not few, in questions of ethics, of the stereotypes it reproduces, in questions of whether it really needs artificial intelligence to do this or not. Let’s be clear, we do not need artificial intelligence for everything and the human value there has not been lost with artificial intelligence and I do not think it will be lost.
There is a contest at the Festival as part of the activities. Tell us a little about this.
Yes, we have the Marketing AI contest because at the 2021 festival we ran an artificial intelligence contest and around 40 businesses submitted that we published on the YouTube channel we created for the festival. We selected a popular winner and a winner from the specialized jury that evaluated these business pitches.
This year we are going to do something different; we are going to do something new, something that has not been done in Cuba. It is a thought that guides much of everything we do.
What is the most popular thing in marketing right now? Artificial intelligence. Let’s create something about artificial intelligence. And we launched the contest whose idea is to create a product or solution that contributes to a marketing objective of any brand already created or fictitious, using one or more artificial intelligence tools
to the degree that the authors or the author deems inconvenient. That is, you create a product of any type to promote something, to position something, to sell something related to a brand, which can also be any type of brand. And you use artificial intelligence, you tell us what tools you used, to what extent or why you used them. And there you sign up, show a link to this product that you made and you are already in the contest.
We will be giving several prizes to each of the two winners, one popular and one jury winner. It can be individual participation or in teams of up to 3 members. Among the prizes is 30,000 Cuban pesos in cash, and we are going to give them an invitation to the in-person event, with some of the leading references and specialists in Cuba in the field of marketing, communication, advertising and entrepreneurship.
It is a contest that is going to be event of nowadays. Many people have been asking us: “I only know about this tool, do you think I can?” Of course. In other words, even if it is little, everything you can do with artificial intelligence is an advance. If it’s an Instagram post for the business with ChatGPT and then, in addition, some image generation tool like Dall-E to make the base image or edit it and such, it’s great. It is already something that, in addition, contributes directly to a project, a brand, an objective and that uses these tools for its creation. With which, yes, you can do anything from something very small to a website, a chatbot or anything else you want to do. We released a video on our Instagram account to show an example. It’s a video of an avatar; we gave a text prompt and the avatar spoke, creating everything in artificial intelligence so that it could be seen. It is an example of the things you can do, which are a lot.
A joint post from El PitchComunicando Negocios en Cuba (@elpitch.podcast)
They are open to any format, the use of any platform. The only criterion is having used artificial intelligence in marketing.
That and it is something that was created during the contest period. That is, it should not be something that was done 3 months or 1 year ago, but rather it should be unpublished. The admission deadline is February 29. We want to give the prizes on March 3, which is the second and last day of the online event.
There will be a part of the event online and another part in person. What will the in-person event consist of?
The in-person event is the last and is the most reserved event, designed for specialists, leading experts in Cuba in marketing and communication. And also for ventures with good practices in the market. It will be at the British residence in Havana, with the support of the British Embassy, and also a lot of brands that are supporting and collaborating with us in many ways. The Festival, I told the team, has also become the festival of brand collaboration, because we have a lot of friendly brands that have supported us, such as OnCuba, a medium with which we are also establishing a sponsorship for the festival and carrying out various cross-marketing actions.
We will share the vast majority of invited speakers for March 2 and 3, Saturday and Sunday, through the YouTube channel created for El Pitch Festival and our Telegram channel. There is a registration form, it is very simple, it is free, it is open. The only thing you have to do is have an internet connection to be with us those two days.
But we know that there are problems regarding the connection and we are supporting people who do not have enough resources to pay for internet data during those two days. We are offering resources, making recharges to those who need it. We know that there are many, great, tremendous professionals in Cuba who have little access to opportunities. That is also what we want to generate. That the event be extensive, that the same people as always not stay, that it does not stay in Havana, for example. That it go further and go to the spaces where opportunities almost never come.
El Pitch Festival, March 2 and 3 online, from 9 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon each day. With talks from speakers. And then questions and answers through our Telegram channel. There we will have prizes from the sponsors. We’re going to have raffles. We are going to have the award ceremony for the artificial intelligence contest. In other words, it will be two days to have fun, have a good time, make alliances, exchange. And to learn a lot, of course.
Until a few years ago, many Cuban entrepreneurs thought that it was not necessary to invest in marketing or digital communication; that it was enough to advertise on Facebook, for example. Or open a channel on Telegram. Or have a WhatsApp group. Do you feel that, for example, compared to the previous edition of El Pitch Festival, from 2021 to the present, awareness has increased among the emerging Cuban private sector of the importance of having a strong digital presence, of having an identity and of investing in marketing to carry out their businesses?
Well, there are several things there. First, the sector is larger. We are many more. In 2021, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises began in Cuba.
The entrepreneurial sector is boosted and the ability to make this sector, the strengthening it has gained in recent years is immense. Although there is still a lot to do, of course. But it is true that this mentality of “I don’t need marketing” or “I don’t need so many channels”; “I’m not going to invest in communication”…although we have made progress (there are many more agencies, there are many more people doing this), it is also still pending. In other words, there will continue to be this reluctance to invest in marketing and communication. That cut first; when I have problems with liquidity or funds, I will cut back on marketing and communication first than anything else. It is in our reality. We see, for example, that there is no brand work in a lot of businesses that they call the “MSME on the corner,” or from here or there. It is the era of non-branding, they do not have a name, a branding behind them; it is simply a generalist category.
There we can see how much remains to be done, that we are in the making, that we are taking baby steps. There remains a lot to be done. We need more time to work; and it is something that will always exist, even outside the national reality it exists.
Now, who is going to keep the largest market share, who is going to survive in the long term, who is going to do sustainable projects, who is really going to grow and scale? Those who work on marketing, communication, advertising, branding and do it well, with common sense, with an interdisciplinary approach and trying to ensure that it meets or favors or contributes to the business objectives.
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El Pitch Festival, March 2 and 3, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
To register for El Pitch Festival, online and free, click here
To participate in the Marketing AI contest, click here
Author
Mónica Rivero
