By Jorge Lazo Arias, Sustainability Manager and Corporate Affairs of Pacific Seguros
At Patrias, we talk about pride. But, if we were a brand, what would we proud? What does the Peru brand represent today?
There is nothing worse for a brand to be incoherent: promise one thing and deliver another. We say that we are warm, but many times we don’t know how to look at the other. We say that we are ordered, but we handle as if the rest did not exist. We say that we are resilient, but we normalize chaos as part of our identity.
The Peru brand – not the logo, not the tourist spot, but the daily experience – suffers that dilemma. Because it is not enough to tell inspiring stories. You also have to fulfill them.
What experience are we delivering?
A citizen crosses the track with fear at 6:00 am because it is dangerous to cross a track, but because living in Lima is like playing in a roulette. Shortly after, a Zigzaguea deliveryman between cars, without a helmet. A taxi driver crosses in red. Nobody flincts. And meanwhile, a mother calls her daughter to remind her to hide the cell phone in the combi. Another routine. Another precaution.
So far from 2025, 2 127 traffic accidents have already been registered, with 266 deceased people and 2,813 wounds, according to PNP data. More than 70% of citizens believe that insecurity is the main problem of the country. But the most serious thing is that we no longer see it as a problem: we see it as a landscape. The operations reveal that almost 2,000 drivers were briefly circulating only in the first months of the year in Lima and Callao. That is also part of the country experience.
Brand without strategy, country aim
More than 7 million people work in informality despite having stable income. Less than 10% of citizens trust Congress. 89 % perceive corruption as overflowing. And in 2025, femicides continue to accumulate as if they were figures and not tragedies.
We have governments that improvise. Public policies that forget. City without city strategies. Country visions without citizens. A brand that does not build culture ends depending on miracles. And the tragic thing is that, in Peru, many achievements are still that: miracles.
Good product, lousy customer service
We have Machu Picchu, awarded gastronomy, ancestral textile art, high coffee. We have talent, history and creativity. But if Peru were an online store, returns would not be for the product … but for the after -sales service.
Because the clues are broken. The hospitals collapse. Schools do not teach. Transport is a jungle where everyone imposes their law.
And just as a good brand takes care of the complete experience, a country should also take care of each point of contact with its citizenship. Today, many of those points generate frustration. No pride.
A permanent crisis
A person was hit and, instead of receiving help, they stole. A mother does not denounce violence for fear of being judged. A young man is killed by his bicycle. And the news lasts one day. The Peru brand is not only in institutional crisis. It is in crisis of humanity. Because a brand is not built with campaigns. It is built with everyday gestures. And when those gestures are indifference, violence or cynicism, branding no longer serves. The reputation erodes from the inside.
We have athletes that win without support. Entrepreneurs who create without credit. Teachers who teach with vocation. Scientists who investigate with minimal resources. We have heroes. What we don’t have is equipment. No organizational culture. No collective leadership. A solid brand is not built in exceptions. It is built in consistency. And in Peru, individual resilience has become a patch of a system that does not hold anyone.
What if this were not just a social, economic or institutional crisis? What if it were a brand crisis? A nation that is not recognized. That does not trust. That does not feel part of something older. Because a brand – like a homeland – needs more than history. You need shared vision. It needs purpose. And, above all, it needs link.
Patrias parties should not be just a parade of symbols. It should be a mirror. A moment to ask ourselves if the homeland we celebrate is the same as we inhabit. Because a country is not its shield. Neither his anthem. Not its flag. A country is the way we look at a red traffic light. And today, that look is broken.
But maybe, if we begin to rebuild it with respect, empathy and personal responsibility … I can shine again. Perhaps what we need most is not a new branding, but a new purpose.
