'Expansión' newspaper article, 25/03/2009

On 23rd March, the ESADE Alumni Marketing Club continued to explore the exciting '2.0' phenomenon by hosting an excellent panel discussion on eBranding 2.0, before a full house at ESADEFORUM. The invited speakers were Jordi Aguilar, Strategy Director of Morillas Brand Design, one of Spain's leading branding firms; Lluís Morillas, Creative Director at the same firm; Mauricio Prieto, CMO of eDreams; and Isaac Mayolas, founder of Caradepoker.com and world champion poker player.

A New World
The moderator of the discussion was Juanjo Rodríguez, a member of the Club's Executive Board. Mr. Rodríguez opened the session by thanking the event’s sponsor, Sabadell Parc Empresarial, for its support, calling it ‘one of the largest business development projects in Catalonia’.

Over the course of the evening, none of the speakers offered a definitive, canonical definition of eBranding 2.0. To do so would have been impossible, since the phenomenon is so recent and unprecedented that it can only be described using metaphors and examples. The first talk, given by Mr. Aguilar, offered proof of this very difficulty. In order to illustrate the current state of affairs in eBranding 2.0, Mr. Aguilar showed a short video from 1908, filmed from a moving streetcar, which showed the city of Barcelona and its inhabitants. 'Look', he said. ‘People wave to the camera. They even tip their hats, because it was something unprecedented, absolutely new.’ He argued that, when it comes to eBranding 2.0, we are still waving at the streetcar.

Mr. Aguilar went on to define branding as 'the story of a seduction'. This seduction, he said, must be based on three premises: first, appeal, which either takes hold or doesn’t - and the difference is a matter of just seconds; second, style, which is discovered over a somewhat longer period of time - perhaps a few minutes; and third, personality, which is the most difficult, because it takes years to achieve. 'The thing is', said Mr. Aguilar, 'the Internet moves at a dizzying speed'. How, then, can a personality be consolidated in a medium like this? Good examples are hard to find, but Mr. Aguilar highlighted one that stands out from the crowd: Barack Obama and his refrain of ‘Yes, we can’. This brand has such personality, he said, that it has produced surprising statistics: more than 5 million fans on Facebook and more than 500 groups on Flickr.

Two Examples
The second speaker, Mr. Morillas, described two campaigns launched by his firm, Morillas Brand Design: one for the company eDreams and another for the website Caradepoker.com. While both campaigns are emblematic, they are certainly different, as well. The one point they have in common is their light-hearted, youthful tone. The eDreams campaign, in keeping with the brand name, is based on the motif of ‘dreaming or thinking' and a logo, also consistent with this idea, consisting of small, squarish ‘thought bubbles’ (‘because we all dream and we all think, but not about the same things, or even in the same ways - that’s the key’, he said). In the Caradepoker.com campaign, the idea was to create a distinctive background using playing card symbols that would make it possible to represent Caradepoker without necessarily showing the company’s logo. Mr. Mayolas, the founder of Caradepoker.com, corroborated this thesis: ‘We never asked Morillas Brand Design for a logo. What we needed, since the web moves so fast, was for people to identify us with an impact of just one second. Quite literally, we cannot be flashing our brand name every minute'. Mr. Prieto of eDreams highlighted the collaboration of Morillas Brand Design with his company’s internal creative team. He also noted that the design company actually read the brief that eDreams provided. 'This is something that doesn’t always happen with other agencies', he said.

During a lively question-and-answer session after the panel discussion, the speakers tried their best to answer the burning question: 'What is eBranding 2.0, really?' Mr. Aguilar offered this reply: ‘It is a great name, very attractive. But I repeat: we are still waving at the streetcar.’

One member of the audience shared an original opinion: that eBranding 2.0 is when a company and Internet users build the personality of a brand collectively. He then admitted that this idea 'is quite scary'.

Price for members and guests: free (each member may bring a maximum of one guest, provided that he is listed on the registration form). 

Price for non-members: 20 euros