Barcelona has been, and is, a benchmark in creativity, avant-garde, and design. To analyze the keys that have led to this success and evaluate the current health of the Barcelona brand, The New Barcelona Post will host publicist Lluís Bassat in the second session of the Moments Estel·lars de la Barcelona Contemporània cycle, presented by journalist and UPF-BSM professor Toni Aira.
In collaboration with Must Media Group and CASA SEAT and, from now on, also with the support of Barcelona Global, the conversation will take place on Monday, June 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the CASA SEAT auditorium. To attend as an audience member and also be able to ask questions to the speaker, it is necessary to reserve a spot in advance.
In addition to being an in-person event, Moments Estel·lars is recorded in podcast format and can also be viewed through our Youtube channel. The first chapter of the series is now available, featuring Juan Antonio Samaranch, vice president of the International Olympic Committee, on Spotify, on Youtube and on the main podcasting platforms.
With Moments Estel·lars, we want to relive with a forward-looking perspective the relevant events of the 20th and 21st centuries that have made us proud to be from Barcelona. Each month we will converse with protagonists and prominent witnesses of these moments of glory, not only focusing on the past, but bringing to the present those learnings and success factors to guarantee a better future.
Born in Barcelona in 1941 and from a family of Sephardic Jews, Lluís Bassat has been one of the most influential people in the advertising sector, where for 40 years he worked from the Catalan capital for dozens of large multinational brands in association with the American group Ogilvy & Mather. Bassat was the creator of the slogan Som 6 milions ---commissioned by the Generalitat--- and the campaign No lo abandones, él nunca lo haría (Don't abandon him, he never would), for the Purina Foundation. Author of advertising classics for brands such as Avecrem, Hellmann's, and Adidas, Bassat was also the ideologue of one of the most famous anti-smoking campaigns remembered, with Johann Cruyff performing acrobatics with a pack of cigarettes at his feet.
Architect of the Olympic ceremonies
However, his most important work was the organization of the Barcelona 92 Olympic Ceremonies, which he considers "the best advertisement of his life, lasting three and a half hours." With a global audience of 1.5 billion viewers, these ceremonies were a resounding success and allowed a new image of Barcelona to be projected to the world and placed it on the map. Thirty years later, we want to talk with Bassat about what remains of the legacy of the Olympic Games and about the new attributes, both positive and negative, that the Barcelona brand has been acquiring.
Readers who come to CASA SEAT to attend the conversation will also be able to visit the exhibition Barcelona 92: the impulse of a city, which aims to honor the civic impulse and the spirit of public-private union and collaboration that made this great city project a winning option. The exhibition is available from today, May 31, until August 6.
Lluís Bassat retired in 2007, at which time more than 650 people worked in the different companies of Bassat Ogilvy Group. Author of iconic books such as The Red Book of Advertising and The Red Book of Brands, Bassat currently dedicates his time to enjoying his grandchildren, to the activities promoted by the Carmen & Lluís Bassat Private Foundation and to his facet as an art collector, as he owns one of the most representative collections of contemporary art made in Catalonia during the second half of the 20th century. With more than 2,500 original works, part of this collection has been exhibited since 2010 in the Nau Gaudí in Mataró, although the publicist's dream is to get Barcelona to make a public commitment to enable a museum that permanently exhibits all the contemporary art made in Catalonia.