The factors at play that find you on the HSA gallows?

[canadianbeaver]

“However, HSA must use their brands/trademarks if they wish to keep them”

I guess you mean this. 

 

[old surf dog]

Cuba's economy is government controlled and centrally planned. Market forces do not always apply in such an economy so misappropriation of resources is going to be pretty common. What makes sense in a free market (or mostly free market) will not make sense in a centrally planned one. Example: Soviet Union grocery failures, tons of potatoes and onions rot and go to waste but people lack other vegetables. Thousands of size 13 boots can be found, but no size 10s. Centrally planned economies don't work very well and the decisions of the planners are often impossible to explain.

[NSXCIGAR]

On 6/5/2018 at 7:24 AM, old surf dog said:

Cuba's economy is government controlled and centrally planned. Market forces do not always apply in such an economy so misappropriation of resources is going to be pretty common. What makes sense in a free market (or mostly free market) will not make sense in a centrally planned one. Example: Soviet Union grocery failures, tons of potatoes and onions rot and go to waste but people lack other vegetables. Thousands of size 13 boots can be found, but no size 10s. Centrally planned economies don't work very well and the decisions of the planners are often impossible to explain.

All true of course, but HSA itself operates with a significant degree of capitalism as Imperial controls 50% and they want profit. Obviously, they are somewhat slaves to Tabacuba which is a state-run enterprise but once the cigars get made there is a great deal of private interest. Models, marcas and marketing are under the auspices of HSA and all decisions relating to that are heavily influenced by Imperial. 

I would say that it was the communist-run state of HSA prior to Altadis (Imperial) that resulted in the lack of innovation and reluctance to shift away from decades-old models and formats. This has been discussed here before, and many traditionalists (including myself to a large degree) wax poetic about their preference for the traditional ways. But we have to accept that the current state of affairs was long overdue from a modern marketing and sales perspective. Trimming of unpopular vitolas and scaling back lesser-known marcas and packaging formats (50 cabs, for example), special releases and large RG cigars are the modern approaches and we are in the minority. HSA is simply not catering to those of us who want unbanded 50 cabs of SLR Lonsdales.