Adios Barcelona

Sunday.

The city is quiet.

It rests without work.

Silent without my students.

Adios y gracias Carlitos y Patricia, draftfcb y Double You.

Adios bonita Barcelona, Cadaques y Vilassar de Mar.

Adios my adventurous students.

I wish you well.

Jean

Digital DNA

Friday was our last agency visit. It was well worth the wait. Double You is an agency where creativity curses through their veins and digital is part of their DNA. The agency embraced the digital world, jumping in in 1997, when they opened their shop. Today, nearly 15 years later, they employ over 100 people and have agencies in Barcelona, Madrid and recently opened an office in Mexico City – immediately garnering the Coca Cola Mexico account. Adéu, Barcelona! embodies the spirit of the Double You DNA.

Double You’s philosophy on communication is multidimensional. As creative director, Jesús Revuelta said, “The old way was like bowling. The new way is like pinball.” This attitude and bold work has landed them accounts such as: Nike, vodaphone, Spanish tourism, L&G Electronics, Audi and many P&G brands. Jesús and Luis Ortiz, on the account side, walked us through four cases: Mahou, Audi, Estrella and Hot Mail.

Mahou and Estrella provided a great comparison between two Spanish beers and the cases were loaded with insights for the student team working on the beer cultural code. With Mahou Double You leveraged the brand’s ownership of the cinema space, which differentiates them from their competitors. Along the way they created huge buzz engaging consumers in the creation of a movie through social media. With Estrella the team won the hearts of Spanish consumers with a single beautifully languid TV spot that became the summer song. Consumers now await Estrella’s summer spot, which runs only once, and sings its way across Spanish beaches. The students were thrilled to learn the behind the scenes account after visiting the parent company, Damm, earlier in the week.

Introducing us to Audi the team demonstrated their ability to leverage social media with the Virtual Me campaign. It was witty, playing on emotions that can’t be reproduced without human experience – driving consumers to test drives and purchase. Along the way they introduced us to what is considered the best television ever produced in Spain. This BMW spot, by SCPF, never shows the car. Rather it uses the hand of the driver, feeling the wind against his skin as he drives across Spain. The student team working on the cultural code of cars walked away with lot of new insights.

The Hot Mail campaign was absolutely brilliant. It tracked one guy’s quest to win back the heart of his woman. Via Hot Mail and social media Spanish consumers watched and cheered him on, all the while learning about all the new features available on Hot Mail. Lucky brand. Luckier guy. He won her heart.

We ended our visit with a discussion of cosmetics when Tania Nolla joined us to talk about Spanish female consumers. The cosmetics team benefited in spades, taking away insights that led them to a great Spanish cultural code.

The highlight of our visit was being there the moment the Double You team found out they had won the Nestlé’s account. Congratulations!

Jean

Natural Surrealism: Dali and Cadaques

During our short time in Spain we have come to realize several things about the Catalan culture. In everyday life, they appreciate authenticity, and natural elements. The beautiful setting in which Barcelona is set has greatly influenced the culture. The art, architecture and mindset towards products of different categories draw from the environment in which they live. While this idea was evident in Barcelona, it was on our day trip to the towns of Figueres and Cadaques yesterday that cemented the concept of nature and culture.

Our first stop was to the Dali Museum in Figueres, the birthplace of this master artist. Some of his most famous works include The Persistence of Memory (the melting clocks) and The Elephants. Dali however also did a lot of paintings and drawings of natural elements, sea creatures, and landscapes that implemented his surrealistic style which infused a layer of fantasy into his work. Even the museum itself was designed by Dali which his circular in design and is topped with a large glass sphere which, as an organic form, symbolizes the Spanish appreciation for natural shapes and forms.

From Figures the class winded up the mountain roads to the coastal town of Cadaques, where we stopped for a few hours to explore this rare gem on the Mediterranean. Here we encouraged the students to take this opportunity to observe and talk with Catalans that live outside of the busy Barcelona cityscape. While Cadaques is a very popular tourist destination in the summer, it is still a very different environment to be immersed in. In fact, many students made the comment that Cadaques reflected the “real” Spain that they had envisioned because it still clings to tradition. As we saw with the Dali Muesum and in our experiences in Barcelona at markets and at Park Güell and other Gaudi sites. Authenticity and nature were rooted deeply in the city. From the layout and planning of the city to the materials and forms used their architecture natural elements were highly prevalent. Visiting Cadaques gave the class a moment to slow down and observe another side of Catalan life. Please visit the individual student blogs to read more about the cultural insights they took away from this Spanish paradise.

Adios!

Lauren

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6.5 Seconds

The award winning Barcelona office of draftfcb hosted us Wednesday. What an inspiration! Executive Creative Director, Beto Nahmad, with Account Director, Laura de Luque, presented a dozen blockbuster cases – all defined by the digitally driven society 2.0. Yet, for as much as digital shapes us, advertisers must think digital rather than be digital because end the day we are all human and long for personal connections.

Digital changes everything and with consumers having increasing control of the mediated world, brands need to become friends with consumers. To do this advertising must feel like anything but advertising. It must make connections by being cleaver and compact – in 6.5 seconds.

Beto walked us through their work for Tunisia Air’s “7 Days/70 People” initiative, which just landed draftfcb a gold at El Sol. Congratulations! Next he introduced work for Gui Repsol. Both brands live in the tourism category, and everything draftfcb did from them feels authentic and true to their spirit – and nothing like advertising.

Beto also showed us seven cases from the spirits category featuring Rom Barelo, Tia Maria, Sailor Jerry and Siboney 34 and Hendricks. These were particularly interesting as in Spain alcohol cannot be advertised on television. In fact, none there is no advertising allowed in mass media whatsoever. The campaigns they developed for these brands leverage social media and promotional events in highly imaginative ways that garnered new audiences and secured a passion among existing audiences use techniques that surprised and engaged them.

Smint mints, River Plate and Action Against Hunger rounded out the presentations. Action Against Hunger was the agency’s 2011 commitment to the community. Raising awareness about hunger the agency partnered with Reebok as they helped citizens in rich countries burn calories to feed citizens in poor countries. The campaign was so successful the agency plans to move into South and Central America.

We left the agency inspired to turn advertising on its head – using the power of collaboration to generate ideas that push beyond the boundaries of expectation into the world of imagination, build brands along the way.

Jean

Bucket of Variables Lead to Cultural Insights

This afternoon, we ventured outside of Barelona’s city center where tourists and street vendors clog the streets to a quiet upper class neighborhood to the east of Barcelona’s main hub. Our mission? To visit a hypermarket in order to draw some new insights regarding Spanish culture, but also make comparisons to our experience in London at the ASDA store we visited near Old Kent.

The experiences at each market was unique. In part because of the cultural differences between the British and Spanish, but also perhaps because of the neighborhoods each store was located. Our hypermarket in London was located in a very blue collar area. Conversely, Mercadona, our Spanish hypermarket, as mentioned, was in a more upper class area on Barcelona. Needless to say, despite these differences the visits were both invaluable to the students because it gave them the opportunity to step outside of the touristy areas of the city to see real residents in their day-to-day setting, shopping for daily necessities.

For this exercise, we instructed each student to think of a variable, or motif which they could focus on while walking through the market. We used the example of the sea which we observed when visiting the Gaudi sites as a launching point. From there the students decided on multiple variable groups from which to draw observations. These ranged from vibrant colors, to complexity of packaging or displays, to repeating patterns or shapes and the idea of dead or alive food and produce. From this starting point the students had a little over 30 minutes to meander through the store and see what they could observe within the market that fell into their chosen category and see if any patterns emerged within their “bucket of variables” from which they could identify any cultural insights.

After the exercise we asked the students to group up with fellow students with categories similar to theirs to see if any common patterns emerged and if we as a class could draw some conclusions about the Spanish, particularly those in Barcelona and their perceptions and behaviors in regards to food, shopping and markets. See the student posts for what they learned in this exercise!

Tomorrow we venture to Figueres and Cadaques to explore the museum and home of Salvador Dali while enjoying a little R&R outside the hustle and bustle of Barcelona. It will be great to get out of the city, and also an excellent opportunity for the students to see Spanish culture in a smaller, more authentic setting.

Adios!

Lauren

Blind at la Boqueria

Yesterday, after much anticipation, the students were finally able to visit la Boqueria, an outdoor market in the center of Barcelona off of Las Ramblas. After such a fabulous experience at London’s Borough Market, there was much excitement to visit a similar venue in Spain. We also planned a very similar exercise for the students at this market as well using their five senses. This time however we chose to focus on the senses of sight and sound to form observations that could be transposed into cultural insights.

We paired up the students and instructed each pair to take turns being the guide and the observer. The observer would close their eyes and then use solely either their sense of smell or their hearing to pick up on observations. The guide would walk them through the market and write down their thoughts and observations. With this exercise we encouraged the students to move past the obvious and delve deeper into the meaning and memories behind their observations and consider why and what they may mean in relation to the culture of Spain, Barcelona, and la Boqueria in general.

It will be interesting to see what the students found as they blindly explored the market for a few moments. Humans are inherently reliant on our sight to draw conclusions in daily life. Therefore to again eliminate that part of of the puzzle from this experience will hopefully draw some rich insights into the culture and we will be able to see some patterns emerge and some differences come to light between the market here in Spain and the markets of the United Kingdom.

Lauren

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Doing Good for Brands and People

We visited the four year old Spanish boutique agency Carlitos and Patricia on Monday. Principle, Patricia Luján, inspired the students with her love of advertising – and pigs. The agency’s logo, a pig, inspired by Chinese lore from the year the agency was founded and the years of their birth suggests a lightheartedness. But, don’t let that belie the serious of their work.

Carlitos and Patricia pooled years of big agency experience when they opened their shop. Their philosophy is based on a passionate love of brands, ideas, results and doing good. That passion translates into imaginative and highly successful work for clients such as Ikea, MUJI, e-bay, and “Day of the Book.” Day of the Book represents not only great work, but the essence of their philosophy. The single day event is held on the feast of Sant Jordi, who as it happens in the patron saint of chivalry. Thousands of people from all over Barcelona “sell” a book they once owned for anything but money – a kiss for a stranger, becoming an organ donor, a call to mom to say “I love you,” or a host of other things done simply to make the world a better place. It is this approach that defines their agency’s philosophy. Using any media that will create resonance and build the brand is on the table as they craft their projects – doing good for brands, doing good for people.

Patricia and her partner, Carlitios González, shy away from classic campaigns. Rather, they prefer to work on conceptual projects for brand they love, always balancing their work with the things that bring them joy. For them there is nothing more important than to be happy, do good and get results. Check out their 2010 TED presentation and learn more.

Thanks Patricia!

Jean

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