The Leading Brands of Spain Association (AMRE) in conjunction with its partner the ESIC Business & Marketing School and the consultancy firm BBDO, has launched a cycle of lectures on senior management. These lectures are focused on strategic issues for companies related to brands, marketing, branding and communication in order to allow companies to explore and improve their management.
The first day of lectures, held on 18 November at the ESIC head offices in Pozuelo de Alarcón, was titled ‘Co-marketing, collaboration between brands to tackle the crisis’. Participants included Ignacio Ochoa, CEO of BBDO Consulting; Miguel Otero, Managing Director of AMRE; Lander Unzueta, Marketing Director of Barcelona FC; Javier Ibarra, Managing Director of Travel Club; Fernando Martínez, Deputy Director of Repsol Private Market; Joaquín Sierra, Executive Vice Chairman of Natura Bissé; Oscar González, Manager of Cofares; and Juan Carlos Alcaide, Professor of Marketing at ESIC, who presented and analysed some of today’s most successful case studies of companies with leading brands.
During the day it became clear that partnerships between two brands in order to seek synergies and mutual benefits is a business strategy that can prove extremely useful. And this is particularly true in times of economic difficulties such as these, which make innovative strategies and ideas that bring together the potential and values of two or more leading brands more important than ever.
Ignacio Ochoa defined the concept of co-marketing, identifying its risks and advantages, stressing the importance of choosing the right partner and of the relevance and credibility of the end product/service as success factors. Juan Carlos Alcaide explored the theory of co-marketing, emphasising its differences with respect to other kinds of alliances.
As a success case, Lander Unzueta, Marketing Director of Barcelona FC, presented FCB’s vision above and beyond sport and how FCB uses its brand and the emotional link it has with its consumers in order to enhance its social activities. In particular he spoke of club’s “reverse sponsorship” with UNICEF on players’ shirts, therefore helping the organisation beyond the economic dimension. Javier Ibarra, Managing Director of Travel Club, and Fernando Martinez, Deputy Director of Repsol Private Market, stressed the importance of profitability, economies of scale and synergies achieved with multi-sponsor cards, providing specific data. Finally, Joaquin Sierra, Executive Vice Chairman of Natura Bissé, stressed the importance of following and seeking out trends outside the sector in order to identify new business opportunities.
