José Rivera Damirón (“Checheo”) has the satisfaction of having created the imprint in advertising of exposing the love for national identity. If there is a characteristic that defines his work, in the 50 years working in propaganda and 30 years after founding the company “Staff Publicidad”, it is having started selling our culture and patriotism through his campaigns and commercials.
First, as publicity manager and strategist for Barceló and company, where he was in charge of the brand’s famous campaign, which recreated the idiosyncrasies of the country’s towns, through 14 commercials, and which became advertising propaganda for higher incidence at the national level, in recent times.
Also, from his company he continues to promote the value of Dominicanness, an example of this is the slogan created for this newspaper which reads: “LISTÍN DIARIO as Dominican as you”
Checheo (74 years old) has art running through his veins. He belongs to a family lineage where music was a distinctive brand since the time of his great-grandfather.
He is the son of famous parents, the maestro Luis Rivera and the singer, dancer and folklorist Casandra Damirón, known as “La Soberana de la Canción”, and to whom the Casandra Awards, today the Soberano Awards, were created.
Student of the Luis Muñoz Rivera school. From a very young age he studied music, at just eight years old he already played the guitar well and began to learn to play the piano with his father. He remembers that because he was the son of a great musician, his teachers demanded much more of them, at that age he already knew music theory and intonation.
“I did not free myself from the demands of the time, on the contrary, more was demanded of me. Generally, when you study music, they give you music theory first and then intonation, and when I was very young I had to learn both at the same time. But I thank dad and mom for all those demands because I developed a keen ear, ”she says.
With time the music was left in the background, and it is that when Checheo could not live up to the demands, then one of the reprimands he received was that they did not take him to see the baseball games, and that made him very sad. Discipline was always present on the part of his parents for the three brothers, children of Casandra, Andrés “Papito” Moreta Damirón (deceased), Checheo and Luisa Rivera Damirón.
“In my house you had to be bathed and ready at the table to wait for dad and eat with the family. We had a very strict upbringing, it was the usual thing, but today I am infinitely grateful,” he says.
His childhood took place during the Trujillo tyranny. For him it was common to see the son of the “Boss”, Radhamés Trujillo, come to his house to look for his older brother Papito to go play sotbor or to call the telephone number 260, at the sentry box of the guard house of the tyrant’s residence to tell his brother that he should return home.
But it was also common to see opponents of the regime visit their mother, Doña Casandra, like Surún Larancuent, daughter of Dr. Larancuent, a well-known opponent of the dictator.
“Surún and mom were very close friends and they sat down every afternoon on the veranda of the house to talk and drink coffee. Mom worked at La Voz Dominicana and she was also in charge of the make-up department. At that time my dad held the position of police captain, a title he obtained as conductor of the orchestra. At that time I knew absolutely nothing about what was happening in the country with respect to tyranny. The newspapers, radio and television did not talk about this matter. The information was very limited. I came to know the horrors when Trujillo died.
At the age of 16, he asked permission to work, the only condition his father put was that he not move away from art. And so he became a producer of various programs at Rahintel. “I was one of the youngest television producers at the time,” he recalls.
In addition to working, his parents demanded that he study a university degree, so he ended up graduating in business administration.
Your ticket to advertising
It is thanks to his father’s good relations that Checheo came to advertising
Young & Rubicam Damaris. Damaris Defilló was a close friend of her mother and she gives him the first opportunity in her company. She was a quick learner and rose through several senior positions within the company.
“Damaris was like a mother to me. I learned a lot from her and I am eternally grateful to her ”, he refers.
His fame as a good publicist earned him the position of publicity manager and strategist for Barceló and company. It was in this mandate that the campaign “We are a people that sings” was carried out, in which the towns and provinces of the country saw themselves portrayed with their specific characters and cultures.
It was at the end of the 80s, when a group of the best professionals in the country embarked, first on an investigation headed by the folklorists Fradique Lizardo and Degoberto Tejada, Nandy Rivas’ publicist and her team were in charge of creativity. and execution of the commercials, which included the musical work of Manuel Tejada, Juan Luis Guerra and Jorge Taveras, in photography Cladio Che, El Che Castellanos, Pegi Guzman participated.
“It was a completely innovative campaign, which raised patriotism and to a great extent the regional identity of each province. At that time, rum was closely linked to sex and the lower sectors of society. With this campaign we took him to a place of respect, from being in third place we managed to place him in first. With this campaign, the process of evaluating the product, evaluating the identity of the market and evaluating the consumer was born”, he explained.
He added: “He put on the table the daily life of the towns that others did not know. The incidence was so strong that there were commercials, the producer was hardly shown, and people already knew about the brand only because of the music”.
Faced with this position, Checheo remained for 14 years, managing a million-dollar advertising budget. He decided to leave the position after Miguel Barceló left the presidency and disagreements with the new management forced him to leave. Two months after leaving the company, Miguel Barceló passed away.
“I left with my experience and knowledge, and I went out to found my company Staff Publicidad. When I started I didn’t have a single client, and 30 years after its founding we have managed more than 30 important accounts in the country.”
Despite the fact that Dominican advertising had a foreign influence, today our advertising style can be exported, which is defined as very nationalist, a style that began and that celebrates that this is the current of the time.
“Our advertising is in an introspective stage, because it is based on the self, in the Dominican Republic, luckily because instead of having advertising without foundations we have campaigns to sell and extol what we are as a country and as Dominicans, and that is positive”.
Checheo, who is one of the oldest active advertisers in the market, has also observed that advertising has stopped being particular because the same elements are being used. “But little by little the incorporation of a new generation in advertising is adding other values, colors and other perspectives.”
As a good connoisseur of the times in which he lives, he has joined the use of new technologies both for his work and for personal use. He is aware of the new musical currents and sees in Santiago Matías (“Alofoke”) a great marketing potential, which he values, even admires for being an impressively skilled person.
He talks in detail about the future of this movement and observes that many strategies based on scandals will end up being fleeting, so he invites Matías to continue preparing and make the most of his talent.
“If at 74 years of age, 50 of my career and 30 years of having founded my advertising company, and I am still active and can offer interviews of interest, it is because I have been lucky to have the preparation. It sounds cliché, but the key to success and permanence is preparation, ”he says.