The cooling ashes

August was much slower as everyone headed to the beach to bask in the sun and cool off by dipping their feet in the icy waters of the Atlantic or out to the countryside to relax in the shade.

Unfortunately, this year also saw a large number of deliberately lit bushfires destroy thousands of hectares of forest. Was it coincidental that these fires were concentrated in the most populated regions rather than the wilder parts? Rumours and conspiracy theories abound as to who is behind the fires: is it organised crime, property developers or just a random mix of the deranged and disgruntled? Some signage in prominent locations to warn people of the danger levels, fire bans and penalties certainly wouldn´t go astray.

On our own travels to the beach it has been surpising to see how little relationship the locals have with the sea despite their maritime heritage and ravenous desire to eat anything that sports fins or grows on a wet rock. The beaches are often awash with rubbish, particularly from the fishing industry.

The local lifesavers also regularly drag in exhausted waterlogged swimmers after they are caught in currents and rips, deceived by the apparently calmer water in these parts of the beach. A little education on where to swim at the beach, the introduction of flagged swimming zones on surf beaches and some warning signs would make life a lot safer and easier for all involved. Some rescue boards might not go astray too.

Street cred

Next up was a small ethnographic study with girls and guys aged 18-24 to see how they experience shopping for clothes and their relationship with some of the leading fashion brands for this age group. We took pairs of friends on shopping trips and then followed this up with a casual interview in one of the participant´s homes.

For the shopping trip we visited some of the most popular stores for this segment, Berhska and Pull & Bear, and we also included Adolfo Dominguez´s U and Caramelo Jeans or CRMJ. These latter stores target older shoppers but could also be aspirational and accesible for this younger age group.

We expected the girls we interviewed to have a strong relationship with Bershka and this turned out to be true but we also discovered it was a more complex love/hate relationship for some due to their almost traumatic experiences dealing with the crowds Bershka stores attract and the apparent bad attitude of sales staff. Though it doesn´t look like these negatives will cause Bershka to become a victim of their own success for a long time yet.

These interviews also provided an opportunity to discuss their communication habits which for the girls could best be described as frenetic. Yet this constant activity, mainly through text messaging and instant messaging, doesn´t appear to be fatiguing, just as earlier generations could apparently spend endless hours sitting on the phone discussing important social issues such as which legwarmers are the coolest. Middle aged executives around the world now share this addiction but instead gossip and plot on their “Crackberries”.

For Spanish youth, the ‘always-on’ communication trend has jumped platforms in the past 18 months as MSN Messenger has caught on. They may soon jump back to greater use of mobiles phones if Messenger´s mobile version is packaged well with new mobiles. Another potential platform would be the walkie talkie services enjoying some success in the US but little news locally yet on this. The people we interviewed certainly were ready for a device such as the Blackberry with some low cost 3G thrown in to provide bandwidth for lots of messages and the occasional photo or video. This shouldn´t take long, certainly not as long as it took to liberate mobiles from being exclusive to 80s businessmen in pastels and big hair.

The Spanish media environment has some particular national characteristics but the habits of 18-24s reflect global trends and epitomise the challenges facing major media players around the world. Print media are largely ignored with the exception of some occasional reading of free newspapers or newspapers in bars. Instead the Internet plays an important role in providing entertainment and information and this is growing quickly with the current boom in online video through sites like YouTube. Radio retains some relevance because of the attraction of music programming as does TV through the popularity of sports programming and series such as “House”.

There is always a part of the day for ‘kicking back’ on the couch but now some of the day is better spent ‘leaning forward’ to participate in online gaming, updating your blog or sharing your interests on MySpace. Advertising of all sorts, all day is part of life´s wallpaper. Brands that ‘kick back’ and lurk in passive media such as TV and magazine advertising had better have massive budgets and some great creative to avoid getting lost in the background. Better value can be found in getting out to participate in communities of interest in the streets and cafes, blogs and spaces, concerts and clubs, beaches and mountains.

We saw how brands like Puma, Apple and Bershka have won a prominent place in the hearts and minds of Spanish and global youth by delivering accessible style, design, attitude and quality. These brands are perceived to ooze value and authenticity, sometimes with a big advertising budget, sometimes without. I guess to get the 'real thing' we learn to put up with those nasty sales staff and those not so great Apple features (buggy iTunes updates, poor support, dodgy ipod batteries, incompatible file formats…). Nobody's perfect.

Batten the hatches!

According to the meteorologists we are about to receive a visit from the remnants of Hurricane Gordon with 100km / h winds and a 25 foot swell but we'll wait and see, sometimes these predictions can be a little over the top. However all the kids who have been given the day off school tomorrow will be happy regardless of the weather.

The predicted wind strength pattern of 'el Gordo'.

The Open Door Policy

June was officially Roadmap Europa´s maiden month in operation, the dawn of a new era! So while the party balloons gradually deflated we hit the autopistas of Galicia to knock on doors and meet our new neighbours in the tourism, fashion and service industries.

As one of the regions with more traditional family businesses, we found significant variations in the resources dedicated to marketing, research and communication in different companies and organisations. Many businesses and public sector organisations still struggling to be comfortable with investing in research and marketing; at the same time there are more progressive companies with significant experience implementing dynamic marketing strategies to compete effectively at a national and international level.



Our first client was the regional government for whom we researched and developed a guide to help the public servants who assist new immigrants with setting up their lives in Spain and finding work. A very topical issue as there has been enormous debate over how to respond to the waves of immigrants currently arriving in Spain via the Canary Islands. We initially conducted a series of indepth interviews in order to establish a good base of knowledge for the development of the guide. We met some great people and heard stories of the sacrifices, hardship and success of immigrants from places such as Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Ivory Coast, Senegal and China. Working on this project also led to an invitation to share our own, very different experience, at a seminar on immigration trends, policy and practice in Galicia.
Since then we have continued our business development travels, relaying back and forth between A Coruña and Vigo with side trips to Lugo and Ourense. We have also delivered some website evaluation consulting work and continue working on a marketing plan with one of the local wine regions.

Logos and Nenos

In April and May we continued to make progress in setting up the company and arranging all the nuts and bolts such as website, logos, business cards, laptops, email etc. Most of these things took longer than anticipated but at least we have been relatively happy with the results and what we have will allow us to operate effectively until we are ready to upgrade some of these things in the medium term. Thanks to the guys at Promedia for their support and patience in getting this work completed. However, the bureaucratic delays provided us with an opportunity to take some time studying the local trends in the online space and in relation to youth shopping, media and communication habits. This research and analysis has helped us understand local issues, provided a talking point on our visits to potential clients and was also picked up by the local print media.

Recent years have seen a strong resurgence in the use of the Galician language in all walks of Galician life. We took some time out to see how easy it is for local parents to find kids websites in Galician. Unfortunately this proved to be relatively difficult and searches using a wide range of possible keywords in Galician produced patchy results. Those sites that allow kids to play and learn online in Galician were hard to find with a small number of exceptions such as the regional government´s Department of Education website (Xunta de Galicia, Conselleria de Educacion) but even this site was difficult to navigate.

In some further analysis we reviewed the state of online tourism in the northern “Green Spain” by testing a selection of the leading tourism promotion websites such as Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Santiago and others. Most of these sites were fairly clunky and were outdated designs with basic databases of accomodation, limited content and poor usability. One notable exception was the site of Santiago with offers good content depth around a range of themes of interest to travellers and good usability to make the whole experience painless and stimulating. Other standout sites at a national level offering a great online experience for potential visitors were those of Iles Balears and Valencia.

For the history books...

For the history books and our own benefit we though it best to fill the gap between now and when we arrived back in Spain after our travels, so here's the abridged version of what we got up to in the first half of 2006...

Late January we got down to FITUR in Madrid, Spain´s main tourism trade fair, to see the local industry in action and participated in an online tourism seminar put on by the World Tourism Organisation. Given Spain is one of the most popular destinations globally it was no surprise to find ourselves confronted with acres of stands. A vertitable paradise for anyone who can't resist collecting lots of brightly coloured brochures at these sorts of events.

We enjoyed chatting to some of the local tourism authorities about their current plans and priorities, though I’m not quite sure what function the azafatas (hostesses) perform apart from beautifying the stands, most didn’t seem to know much about the product they were representing.


February saw us kick off the legal process of starting up the company here with registration of business names, tax registration and similar arrangements, most of which was wrapped in a thick bundle of bureaucratic red tape. Most steps we took over the next couple of months seemed to involve getting official stamps and waiting a couple of weeks for a variety of different pieces of paper.

Good news was that we were accepted by the local Chamber of Commerce into their Business Incubator program and were soon able to hang a sign on the door, shop for stationery and most importantly acquire a white board (an essential accessory to brainstorm and workshop in any start-up).

The opening of our first office here in Spain (and those of the other companies with which we share the building) was also accompanied by a press conference with various politicians and local business leaders. This gave Catalina her first chance to meet the press and spread the news about Roadmap and after a crash course in media relations she achieved some excellent coverage with the regional TV, radio and newspapers. From the regional press, Catalina below with Rosa who manages the business centre for the Chamber of Commerce.

February also saw me head to Dubai for a brief consulting engagement with the Middle East office of UK based research firm, YouGov. Office the world over look much the same...

The view from the window is usually more interesting...

Dubai is an interesting place with a sharp contrast between the desert, traditional Arabic culture and Islam; and booming business, trade and construction sectors. Apparently it has a large proportion of the world’s construction cranes and large swathes of town are construction sites. The food was great and the warm weather a relief from the cold and rain in Europe at this time of year.