On 8 July, the Leading Brands of Spain Forum was presented to the Autonomous Community of Aragon – an event that has already taken place in some other Autonomous Communities. In the region of 300 Aragonese businessmen and women attended the act that took place in Zaragoza and was organised jointly by the Aragonese Development Agency, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade and Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade.

José Luis Bonet, The Chairman of the Leading Brands of Spain Forum, opened the event with a speech in which he briefly summarised the work of the Forum in its nine years of lifetime. He stressed the need to strengthen the international expansion of Spanish brand-orientated companies to allow them to become the vehicles driving forward Spanish industry.

We need to raise awareness of the all-important need to use brands as an asset for internationalisation, emphasised Bonet, who recalled that the 88 member companies of the Leading Brands of Spain Forum make up 27% of Spanish GDP, 35% of business abroad and give jobs to one million employees.

Then, Alberto Casado, Director of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, emphasised the importance of brands to ensure competitiveness and highlighted that tangible corporate assets are becoming less and less important in comparison to intangible ones.

The first part of the event closed with a speech from Jaime Montalvo Promotion Managing Director of the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade, who spoke of the institution’s commitment to the activities of the Forum and underlined its value as a driver of the nation’s brand. The Spanish Ambassador Brand Plan, recently presented by the Leading Brands of Spain Association, was a central thread in his speech, which Mr Montalvo described as a vital initiative.

The nation’s brand helps companies beginning to operate abroad to be competitive. The Ambassador brands are the best building blocks to construct the nation’s brand, asserted Mr Montalvo.

Two academics then took the floor: Julio Cerviño, a professor at the University Carlos III of Madrid and collaborator of the Forum, and Francisco Cabezuelo, Professor at the University of San Jorge Zaragoza. Cerviño stirred the audience with an entertaining presentation on the importance of brands, while Cabezuela spoke in depth of communications strategies as useful tools for brands.

The day ended with two short sessions focusing on business case studies. In the first, Aragonese companies such as Imaginarium, Pikolín and Lacasa, participated and the second was a round-table where Leading Brands played a central role.

The last session was chaired by Miguel Otero, General Manager of the Leading Brands of Spain of the Forum, and participants included Pascual Caputto, of Bodegas Barbadillo and Bodegas Pyrenees; Roger Labasa, representing Inditex and José Luis Bonet, as Chairman of Freixenet.

This session had a twofold aim: firstly to make the Leading Brands of Spain Forum more accessible to Aragonese entrepreneurs, and, secondly, to emphasise, through specific case studies, the importance of brands as a strategic asset for the international expansion of Spanish companies.

To coincide with the presentation on the Forum, a guided tour was organised around Expo 2008 which was attended by representatives of companies and public institutions.