On 26 November, the headquarters of the Spanish Professional Football League was the scene of a meeting of the Ambassador Brand and Image of Spain committee, the organisation founded to develop the Ambassador Brand Plan presented by the Leading Brands of Spain Association in 2008. This committee is chaired by Antonio Abril, Deputy Chairman of the Leading Brands of Spain Forum and Member and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Inditex, with the deputy chairmanship held by Jaime Montalvo, Managing Director for Promotion at the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade. It comprises company representatives, relevant government bodies and experts in the fields of brands and international promotion. The Committee’s objective is to debate ideas and provide specific proposals for the development of co-branding formulas between the Ambassador Brands and ‘Made in/by Spain’ , for mutual benefit, relying on contributions from the brands and public support to enable this collaboration to go forward. In the course of the meeting, the formation of two working groups was approved, one focused on strategy and co-ordination and the other on markets. These groups will work on specific projects to be carried out and, in turn, approved by the Committee.

The ‘Spain Brand and Spanish Brands’ study, a comparative analysis of their international image made by Y&R’s BrandAsset Valuator, was presented during the course of this meeting. It was presented by Simon Silvester, Director of Strategic Planning of the consultancy firm Young & Rubicam, who explained the results of the report analysing the situation of Spain’s international image and that of its leading brands, as well as the relationship between the main attributes linked to the country’s image and that of a group of leading Spanish brands. Silvester highlighted the need for Spain to distinguish itself through the attributes it has that would be envied by the majority of other countries, although he also alluded to an inconsistency in Spain’s image according to the different markets and a tenuous relationship between the image of the country and that of its leading brands. The study was by Y&R for the Leading Brands of Spain Association and was sponsored by Repsol.