A few years ago, I had coffee at the home of publicist Toni Segarra, accompanied by creative Edu Polo, coinciding with the publication of their joint work titled La Interrupción (Deusto, 2022). "Publicists are ashamed of advertising, which is a marketing tool for people to know and buy a brand and a product. Advertising creativity is thinking about how to say what needs to be said," Segarra reflected. Coincidence or not, he used a television commercial or a CEO's speech to the general shareholders' meeting as examples of advertising.
Toni Segarra's name might sound familiar from ads like Ikea's Bienvenido a la República Independiente de tu casa (Welcome to the Independent Republic of your home); BMW's ¿Te gusta conducir? (Do you like to drive?) or Be water, my friend, or the famous Banco Sabadell conversations. In fact, Segarra explained in October 2019 at the Banco Sabadell auditorium that "we are increasingly aware that consuming is a political act. People think about what tool they have to influence a company, and it is much greater than voting every four years in politics. Going to the supermarket is voting." And going to the bank is also voting.
Toni Segarra is one of the ideologues behind the campaign De accionistas del BBVA para accionistas del Sabadell (From BBVA shareholders for Sabadell shareholders), suggestively imagining what this new bank resulting from the merger could be like. Personnel, synergies, size, competitiveness, specialization in AI or cybersecurity, etc. You have surely already heard almost all the arguments in favor of the takeover bid on television.
And also against it. Banco Sabadell has taken the opportunity to "set the record straight" —and never better said— warning "in a good mood" that "the operation is a hostile takeover bid, full stop" and that "everything is still possible." Good mood for what might happen and the still for what could be, but which is perhaps a little less possible than yesterday. The capitalized word Big in their new advertising campaign orchestrated by Oriol Villar is a direct message to the smalls, that is, to the financing of SMEs and small shareholders. And as their claim says: "Being able to choose is your power." The dispute over the narrative of this takeover bid, which will soon celebrate one year since its first headline, is also being fought in advertising and in the media in Catalonia.
Both entities have intensified their public presence to the maximum of their possibilities. They have a lot at stake. Too much. The president of Banco Sabadell, Josep Oliu, insisted in a recent meeting at Pimec that the OPA "not wanted by its clients" is unable to convince shareholders, employers' associations or unions. More than 30,000 companies have already adhered to the Pimec manifesto in favor of competition within the banking market, which takes over from a report on the impact of the BBVA-Sabadell concentration. Awaiting the CNMC's response, the key will once again be Catalan and Spanish politics.
Following the path of Sabadell or Criteria and Fundació La Caixa, Applus has also returned its registered office to Catalonia after almost eight years. The argument given is the company's restructuring process, but the truth is that the domino effect of the return home operation is being unstoppable. The last one, if possible, to leave the door open to welcome new investments and new registered offices beyond those that left.
The person who is surprisingly leaving the general management of Seat is the British national with a German passport Wayne Griffiths, who for the last five years has strengthened the Cupra brand within the Volkswagen Group with its next stop in the United States. Again, the narrative is in dispute. Griffiths said very recently that this was "the job of his dreams" and the place where he wanted to retire, but now it seems that he is leaving for personal reasons and to undertake "new challenges". His last day of work was March 31st ---all very quickly--- and it is not clear if it is at his own request or due to external pressure. In any case, he has left the best results in Seat's history to date.
To the portfolio of Criteria Caixa, which is the first investment holding company in Spain, a couple of new operations must be added this month, with the acquisition of 20% of Celsa and another 20% of Europastry.
Every new investment is usually paid for with another divestment or debt management. Criteria's list of investees is getting longer and longer (CaixaBank, Naturgy, Colonial, Telefónica, ACS, Veolia or Puig) and responds to the letter of an ambitious plan led by Àngel Simón with a view to the year 2030.
Politician Narcís Serra pointed out in a meeting at the Círculo de Economía that Barcelona has to recover the Olympic spirit of thirty years ago and be a benchmark for digitalization or public-private collaboration in Europe's neighborhood staircase. As one of the few who knows the inner workings of major politics, Serra places the Barcelona Airport, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the Metropolitan Area, or Rodalies as key issues on the economic agenda.
Executive Anna Gener went even further in a meeting at the College of Economists and assured that "until the Rodalies problem is resolved, the housing problem in Catalonia cannot be solved." Everything is linked and also has to do with the lack of land, the relative agility of urban planning procedures, or the issue of trust between the public and private sectors.
Finally, I would like to conclude this column with some reflections that arose after a colloquium with journalists Màrius Carol and Ernest Folch at the Aula school:
- "The book is the hope and the last cultural gift of humanity."
- "Journalism is the effort of a collective to write the architecture of current events."
- "We editors have let Google win the battle. First they took the news and then, the advertising."
- "TikTok is the brain of the beast."
- "Critical spirit is being lost. Journalism is becoming bureaucratized and is afraid of bothering power."
- "The Watergate case would not be possible today."
- "The incentive of truth no longer brings prestige or money in the form of newspaper sales."
- "There is no pause or time for reflection. We are living a nightmare and I hope the world wakes up soon."
- "We must continue to persistently tell the truth. We must believe in journalism."