Colombia honors coffee symbol Juan Valdez on 40th Birthday

Carlos Sanchez who plays fictional Colombian coffee icon Juan Valdez is greeted by President Andres Pastrana in the presidential palace in Bogota

In this story: Symbol of national pride Rooted in reality Keeping up with the times Mule left outside RELATED STORIES, SITES

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Colombian President Andres Pastrana has awarded the symbol of its coffee industry, fictional farmer Juan Valdez, a silver cross for national merit on his 40th birthday at a ceremony in the presidential palace.

Dignitaries ranging from ambassadors to former presidents attended the ceremony in a salon decorated with red carpets, colonial-era furniture and chandeliers.

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Accompanied by his sidekick "Lana" the mule, and wearing his sombrero and poncho, Valdez is a household name for generations of consumers in the United States, Europe and Asia. During live appearances in New York, Paris and Tokyo, the actor who plays Valdez is thronged by fans seeking snapshots with him.

Symbol of national pride

In the "100 percent Colombian coffee" campaign, Valdez promotes the quality of a product that has been a mainstay of the country's economy since the 1870s.

Colombian coffee's triangular logo with the image of a smiling Valdez, Lana and the Andes, is as recognizable as the logos of Continental Airlines and AT&T, said Peter le Comte, president of DDB Worldwide Marketing, the New York-based advertising agency that created Valdez in 1960.

Coffee federation officials say Valdez's popularity is the reason traders are willing to pay up to 11 cents more per pound for Colombian coffee than for beans from other countries. In 1999, coffee brought in $1.4 billion, making it Colombia's second largest legal export after oil. The industry employs 1 million people in this South American nation of 40 million.

"I'm not a vain person but it's hard not to be taken aback by fame," said Carlos Sanchez, who has played Juan Valdez since 1969. "When I play Juan Valdez I don't try to be grandiose, I just try to be me. I just add my voice and my personality," he told Reuters in an interview.

Juan Valdez was born in 1960 when the coffee federation hired DDB to create a media campaign to promote Colombian coffee in the United States. The first Valdez was New Yorker Jose Duval, who played the character until 1969.

DDB agents fanned out across the rugged, coffee-growing terrain of Colombia in search of a new Valdez who would embody the amiable coffee-picker. When they visited the northwestern city of Medellin, they discovered Sanchez, then a struggling young actor who was performing in a play in a small theatre.

"They invited me to an audition in Bogota and made me wear a moustache, a sombrero and a poncho. And that was it," said Sanchez, now 65, who seems the perfect fit.

Born on his family's coffee farm in Fredonia, a small town in the heart of the coffee-growing region of Antioquia, Sanchez learned how to pick bright red coffee beans from his grandfather and his father, just like the fictitious character.

"Coffee has always been my life. I remember being 3-years-old and seeing 'caficultores' out in the coffee fields picking the beans," said Sanchez, who lives quietly with his wife in Medellin, where he paints watercolors, when he is not jetting off for appearances abroad.

Juan Valdez's fame earned him a spot in New York's Advertising Hall of Fame and the positive image of Colombia that he provides has remained unchanged even as modern Colombia has been overrun by guerrillas, narcotraffickers and violence.

"My mother always told me to keep away from bad company," Sanchez said.

In his 30-year stint in advertising "the richest coffee in the world," Sanchez has seen Valdez and his campaign evolve to keep up with the times and the changing coffee consumer.

In the 1960s, black-and white magazine ads featured Juan Valdez educating consumers about Colombian coffee: how the bean is grown, selected, roasted and ground for discriminating coffee drinkers. By 1986, 500 million pounds per year was being shipped to the United States, where two out of three coffee drinkers polled said Colombian coffee was the best in the world.

"When we started the campaign people in the United States didn't know what coffee was about. They thought it was something you just bought at the supermarket but didn't know it came from a plant and needed to be tended with care," said Andres Lloreda, a public relations director for the federation.

In the 1980s, the campaign shifted toward remaking Colombian coffee as a status symbol and ads of the era are replete with images of Rolls Royce cars, luxury ocean liners and castles. With "Generation X" and the proliferation of hip coffee houses in the 1990s, a trendier Juan Valdez appeared on the scene.

The '90s "Grab Life by the Beans" campaign featured Valdez surfing, snowboarding and even hang-gliding with his mule.

"We decided to make a hipper and younger Juan Valdez that showed he was a man of this age," said DDB's Le Comte.

But even as he changes, Juan Valdez has retained his traditional campesino look and faithful mule.

"There's a bit of nostalgia in Juan Valdez. He reminds us of what the coffee industry was at its beginning. Today our coffee growers read the market prices on (computer) screens and no longer have mules," Lloreda said.

Sanchez, a grandfather, says he does not know how much longer he will be Juan Valdez. "I won't be doing this forever," he joked. "Now I have to dye my moustache."

Mule left outside

Valdez's trusty mule Lana had to remain outside when actor Carlos Sanchez, standing in for Valdez, accepted his award from Pastrana.

"We couldn't bring the mule. This is a second floor and, you know, mules have their needs," a protocol spokeswoman said. "It turned out to be more complicated than we thought."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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