The Barcelona brand is the winner in the race to attract the best international talent

Is Barcelona a brand? Yes, but it depends. It is not according to the technical definition of the brand concept made by the publicist Tony Segarra, which considers that a brand is necessarily a simplification, so trying to encapsulate the enormous complexity inherent in a city like Barcelona in a brand is too difficult. “It makes me nervous that we are trying to reduce Barcelona to a brand,” admits Segarra, considered the best Spanish creative of the 20th century.

And, then, if it is not a brand, what is it? According to the co-founder of the SCPF and Alegre Roca agencies, what does exist is “a perception of what Barcelona is in the world”, that is, the city projects an international brand image that, in his opinion, “is close to to the extraordinary.” “Taking into account what Barcelona is, that it is not a state capital and that it is not excessively large, it has an image, a perception, a feeling of enormous value, but I don’t know if we can exactly say that it is a brand, I am very rigid, technically it is difficult for me to enclose it in the parameters of a brand due to its complexity”, says Segarra.

Much more flexible is the vision of Ignasi Puigalso co-founder of SCPF, and current CEO of the Pret-A-Com agency, who believes that brands “are built and exist in people’s heads”, so the Barcelona brand “is everything that people has in mind related to the city, from more tangible aspects, such as the architecture of Gaudí or Las Ramblas, to more intangible issues such as a good quality of life, creativity or that we are a welcoming and advanced city”.

“It is true that brands are like living beings, they evolve, and that, in the case of cities, there is always a higher degree of complexity, but we need to reduce that complexity to be able to work, and we call this simplification the Barcelona brand, it is a practical matter”, argues Puig to defend the idea that it is possible to speak of the existence of the Barcelona brand.

In this sense, in the logic of simplification, Segarra admits that a Barcelona brand can be built if we focus it on a certain segment of the public to whom we want to sell something: “For example, the Barcelona brand that attracts talent, yes, we can build it“, referring to strategies to attract digital talent or nomadic professionals. “For this public we do have the possibility of building a brand, because we can sell them that Barcelona is a modern city where life is very good; that is to say, a place where they will have no problems developing your work and, on top of that, when they leave work they will hardly be better off than here”.

With this debate, the first session of 2023 of the cycle began Barcelona Global Duetsorganized by Barcelona Global and that this year has the collaboration of The New Barcelona Post. It is a series of dialogues that seek to confront the gaze of two global Barcelonans, one resident in Barcelona and the other who lives and works abroad. The first meeting, led by Toni Segarra and Ignasi Puig, took place last Thursday, February 23, and was moderated by another member of Barcelona Global, Bibiana Ballbè, founder of the creativity agency TheCreativeAgency. The session could be followed live on streaming and now you also have it available in this same article or in the Barcelona Global Youtube channel.

Beyond the technicality about what a brand is or is not, both professionals agreed to highlight the great treasure that its global perception represents for Barcelona. “The city is amazingly known internationally”highlights Toni Segarra, who avoids the “exemplary” work that was carried out on the occasion of the 1992 Olympic Games, which allowed the city to “take a strategic leap”, something that has not happened with all Olympic cities.

“The Olympics were an advertising campaign to the beast! This is where the global image of the current brand of the city is born”, underlines the publicist. “The Barcelona product is an extraordinary product, objectively,” he adds, referring to the fact that it is a “very livable and beautiful place”, next to the sea and with security, which quickly caused it to become a tourist destination of success after being known thanks to the Olympics.

Ignasi Puig, who has lived in Miami for almost 20 years, expresses himself along the same lines: “From the United States, what I see is that the positive perception of the Barcelona brand continues to grow”. “All my American friends want to visit Barcelona and, when they return, they come back fascinated, they have an extraordinarily positive experience. Barcelona never disappoints“, he emphasizes. Segarra is of the same opinion: “when people from outside come, they recognize that we have a city that we don’t deserve. We are better than we think.”

And then, how does this very positive vision square with the general feeling that Barcelona is no longer what it was and that it is in decline? Ballbè questions them. “We Barcelonans are very critical of our city, it is true that there is a lot of noise locally, but it does not reach the US. At an international level, the evolution of Barcelona continues to be positive, these local perceptions do not transcend, they remain in the most local environment”, Puig attests.

For his part, Segarra considers that “there are a lot of complaints of complacency”, but acknowledges that today there is a new debate that has to do with the political model of the city that has been built in the last eight years. “There has been a strategic change in the city model, which is reasonably different from the one that existed”, which is why he considers that the debate that has arisen is something totally normal and that it is part of the nature of human beings, “that we are critical beings. “Criticism —he points out— is also part of Barcelona’s habitual non-surrender. This city usually never stops“.

Toni Segarra: “Barcelona, ​​inevitably, must move forward to be a more sustainable, more equitable and fairer place”

The partner of Alegre Roca remembers how the mayor Pasqual Maragall had the vision of “Americanizing Barcelona” and that today, with the new model, we are at the opposite extreme. “Maragall complained that before the public had to stimulate the private, when in the United States it is the other way around, where the public tends to manage the brutal push of the private. I think that today, precisely, we are at the opposite extreme, there is excessive public intervention in Barcelona. The other model generates more growth and wealth”, reflects Segarra.

But then, where should Barcelona go? Segarra asks to flee from nostalgia and from wanting to return “to lost paradises” that do not exist. “Barcelona must inevitably move forward to be a more sustainable, more equitable and just place. We must find a way to achieve this while continuing to generate wealth. Barcelona is full of people wanting to build in that direction”, she considers.

And how would you design a campaign to promote the Barcelona brand if you were commissioned? “Essentially, it would be a continuation campaign, because we are talking about a brand that has a positive inertiaPuig argues. According to this advertising professional, it would be about “maintaining the essences and the most structural aspects of the brand” and “updating and incorporating more contemporary values”.

According to Puig, in this update of the brand it is very important to take into account that the competitive framework has changed. “Until now,” he explains, “Barcelona has developed in a very comfortable competitive environment, it was, exaggerating a bit, in a monopolistic market”, but now “There is fierce competition between cities to attract talent”. “I am not very clear that we are aware of this radical change that is taking place in the city market. We live in a new competitive environment where it is no longer about attracting tourists, it is about attracting talentto the best doctors, engineers or programmers, so that they come to live and work in the city and develop their vital project”, he highlights.

For this reason, Puig urges us to get our act together because the world “is getting smaller and smaller” and there are more and more global competitors to attract the talent we lack and retain the one we already have. “A change in attitude is needed, clearly, it is necessary to change the speed and become more aggressive, to make things happen,” defends the also member of the Barcelona Global International Council and president of its chapter on the East Coast of the United States.

Ignasi Puig: “A change in attitude is needed, clearly, it is necessary to change speed and become more aggressive, to make things happen”

Toni Segarra shares Puig’s vision, pointing out that “it is a long-term race in which, without a doubt, Barcelona is invited to participate”, but “beyond eating well, living well and being able to go to the beach ” There are many aspects that need to be improved in line with the different programs promoted by Barcelona Global to improve the competitiveness and attractiveness of the city. “Many of the necessary infrastructures must be improved” to attract this talent, Segarra emphasizes, referring to issues such as salaries, the availability of schools, taxation or excessive bureaucracy.

During question time, the president of Barcelona Global, Love Barrerawas concerned about the repercussion that an article recently published in Financial Times which indicated that the city had lost its way.

In Puig’s opinion, “we must relativize” the importance of the article because “the facts are going to make him right.” “We have to play our cards, which are winning. Cities and brands are living beings, everything has its evolution, with better and worse moments. The important thing is the trends and the trend is positive, Barcelona is going up. If we have lost our way, we are going to know how to find a new course, safe, to reach a good port ”, she affirms.

The Copa América: a new opportunity

“We resurface when we are fatal”, concludes Segarra, who notes that Barcelona “is a cyclical city”. “The worst is over; Barcelona is once again in a moment of escalation”, and it will be possible to verify with the upcoming celebration of the Copa América de Vela next year: “it will undoubtedly be an opportunity for Barcelona, ​​one more to stay in the showcase”. This opinion is shared by Ignasi Puig, who believes that being the scene of this important global competition “will accelerate the positive inertia of the city”. “You have to take advantage of this opportunity, it will be a turning point towards something better.”

For Ignasi Puig, in the list of “winning cards” that Barcelona has at its disposal, there is one that is not being played with sufficient determination: “if the objective is to attract talent, Barcelona must give a greater role to its university ecosystem and business schools top such as IESE and Esade, which occupy the top positions in all the rankings”. “All the universities we have are excellent, as is the case in Boston,” concludes Puig, referring to the American city that should act as a “model and benchmark” for Barcelona.

“Toni, would you leave Barcelona, ​​like Ignasi did?” Ballbè asked Segarra. eat well, there aren’t that many places in the world to go to,” replied the publicist with a laugh, who confessed to being “a fan of gastronomy”.