When I started studying Advertising in the 90s in Barcelona, I remember my professor Ramon Massó telling us that the best thing a brand can leave you is its legacy. We analyzed ads like the Patek Philippe watches, where a father and a small child were seen, and the father told the child that the watch would be for him, that his father gave it to him and so on. That brand, if it was in a family, became part of its legacy, of its values. It was a totally aspirational campaign that could be criticized, but I found it very powerful that a brand could be part of what you want to leave your children, as part of you. Surely that's how we would begin to explain lovemarks. And this word, as a value, has always interested me.
According to the RAE, legacy is "that which is left or transmitted to successors, whether material or immaterial." Legacy is equivalent to our will; it is a personal plan of what you want to leave to the most important people to you. A life legacy not only means a material contribution, but also the inheritance of fundamental values, beliefs, or life experiences. So when we associate the word legacy with a brand, an event, a person, a surname, its impact multiplies.
I remember that when I was in my family business, I always thought: "How lucky that our company is not named after the founder's surname!" Because the weight would be enormous. Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Chanel, Ferrari, Loewe, Fiat, Cottet, Gallo, Puig… there are so many brands that are the foundational surname that that is indeed a legacy that must constrain you quite a bit. The weight of the surname can be a legacy that is a refuge or a prison.
If we treat an event as a brand and look at some of them linked to cities with perspective: How have they achieved it? How has Terrassa managed to position itself as one of the most important jazz festivals in Spain? How has Tàrrega earned the title of the city of theater? Sitges, that of horror cinema? Segovia with the Hay Festival? Barcelona with the Mobile World Congress or New York with Fashion Week?
Surely its success is due to involving local institutions and companies in its development, bringing together city volunteers to explain and champion the event themselves, involving public and private institutions in the city so that they have something to say in its design and communication, giving the event some of the city's intrinsic values so that it is well connected. That it looks organic, not imposed from outside. Creating a think tank in the city where that topic in question is discussed, thought about, and proposed, forging alliances with other global cities so that the legacy is more solid and universal.
A bit like leading by example, what we do with our sons and daughters and people we care about, when we insist on making certain things clear that are essential in our family's education, which is not the same as another, but we want it to transcend us, it is our heritage.
Legacy is what will be said about you when you are gone. Every thing we do and link to our brand and our city leaves a legacy and we can only do it very well to truly impact.