Workshop on "Brand Country Management"

What is Spain Brand? Why is it needed to offer an image of the country brand? The workshop 'Brand Country Management: Vision and Globalization' took place on the 8th of October at Casa de América. The event gathered Spanish experts and representatives from several institutions from other countries, which have already carried out a brand-country project, to reflect on Brand Spain project and experiences alike.

The minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García-Margallo, inaugurated the event where there were other participants such as the president of the Elcano Royal Institute, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, and the director general of Casa de América, Tomás Poveda.

In his allocution, the minister of Foreign affairs recalled that "Brand Spain began the very same day when this team [his team] came into power and went back to the 2002 initiative.” According to Mr. García-Margallo words, "the main idea was to generate an image of Spain which could attract investment."

The minister highlighted some of the values of Spain and emphasized especially the language: "Today more than 500 million people speak Spanish, is the language of 23 nations". After admitting that regarding "economic matters (...) the Brand Spain has not been enough appreciated," he insisted in that "it is not a governmental project, not even a project of State," but a "project of a country".

Spain Brand is an initiative that on his opinion is "totally a need and it is quite right, both for an inner stance and from the outside one." Why? Because, as he assures, "the Brand Spain aims to give us back the confidence we have lost during this latest times."

"The Brand Spain aims to create that image of Spain in the mind and the heart", concluded Mr. García-Margallo. After his intervention, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa. president of the Elcano Royal Institute, reported that for 10 years his institution had been analyzing the image of Spain. He declared that "the image is important because the representation of a country is what works" and assessed that "what does not have an image, does not exist."

Lamo de Espinosa emphasized that "we filter everything through the image and each country has its own aureole with which it is identified". Therefore, he stated: "The image of a country is the addition of the icons and prejudices, it is a patchwork."

The director of the Elcano Royal Institute assessed that Spain’s semantic image is similar to various countries which are very different from each other, and he explained that the image is based "in an imperial idea and another romantic one". He recalled the existence of an "image of the democratic Spain resulting from the success of the Transition which generated a positive bubble". "In 2004 and 2005, Spain had a more valuated image, both in Latin America and the EU, but there was a sharp drop", he insisted. That drop started in 2009, but he warned it "has stabilized in 2012."

He joined the statement of the ministry of Foreign Affairs and highlighted that the language is a firm value: "The Spanish language is a key element of the positive image of Spain, because it is a useful language". Lamo de Espinosa ended up his communication with a recurrent idea: "Image has to be managed because even if you do not, you are making it". According to his words: "The rest are making image, if you do not do it, the rest will act (...). Not taking care of the image is a very bad way of taking care of it".