Category: blog

By Esteve Cardona, creative director

Fifteen years in advertising go a long way. Chasing monkeysin Cannes. Having your friends tell you they just love a certain advert, which is never one you’ve done. Seeing how your kids are born genetically ready to sleep less than five hours… And coming to the conclusion that raw materials in this business are not shower gel, yoghurt with fruit bits now and then without or that car advertised by Rosalía. The material our advertising dreams and nightmares are made of is that little internal motor that moves consumers: what they want.

And wanting is like stalking your ex’s Instagram or humming that political party’s hymn. You just can’t stop doing it even if it’s a martyrdom. You often know what you want, but not so much what makes you want it. And what you want isn’t often the same as what you need. You’ll understand why after reading this article. Disclaimer: I’m not a psychologist and I’m not Paulo Coelho. But years in this business have taught me quite a few things that will help you understand how your customers operate and your own consumer mind. But, first, here’s a warning: Your wants are quite familiar and often accompanied by their in-laws: your frustrations and fears. If you want to understand the first, you have to accept the rest.

1. You’re a want copycat: you want what others want.

And you’ve always thought your wants were you own. How cute. Wanting is mimetic: it’s copied, reproduced and spread like contagion. You imitate wanting because you want to be like everyone else, because you’re always looking for their approval, because you’re a bag full of insecurities, doubts and influences, because you’re a social being rather than a rational one. That’s why most of the time what you want is not what you need: because another person wants it for you. Think about it the next time you open that human channel surfing app called Tinder.

2. Your wants are quite opportunistic. You don’t want based on what you are, but rather what you’d like to be.

You desire like a seducer, long for things like a millionaire, are anxious for things like a teenager and want like an influencer. Wanting is aspirational. Having what a seducer, millionaire, teenager or an influencer have created this illusion that you’re somewhat like them. But you’re not and that ends up causing more frustration than satisfaction. And since you’ll feel disappointed, you’ll continue turning that wheel to try to feel a little more like that seducer, millionaire, teenager or influencer… and you’ll get frustrated all over again. As one very wise yet crude person once said: “Be careful about wanting to eat everything up; later you have to shit it out.” Frustration moves your wants… and our sales.

3. Motivated thought. Your wants take advantage of your logic.

You think you’re quite rational and superior, the latest update on the system of evolution. But, sorry: your decisions are almost always based on emotion. Your overrated rational capacity shines through when you create supposedly logical arguments to justify the emotional decisions you go about taking. Once we’ve aroused your desire as a consumer, this psychological mechanism known as motivated thought kicks in and you come to the conclusion you most wanted to come to and convince yourself with a variety of creative and exotic arguments that it’s the most logical and most appropriate thing to do.

Does it hurt to read that? Well, just think about what neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor once said to make you feel even worse: “We are not thinking creatures that feel; we are feeling creatures that think”.

4. Programmed to compare. The Paradox of Choice has pulled one over you once again.

We’re genetically programmed to imitate and compare: for thousands of years, that’s been our main source of learning. But what offers an advantage for learning implies a disadvantage when wanting. And when your careful, obsessive, constantly comparing brain comes across an incredible special offer…

That overwhelming abundance of offers will make you compare and you’ll never be happy with what you get. It’s the Paradox of Choice: the more alternatives you have to choose what you like, the less satisfied you’ll be with what you end up choosing. And instead of enjoying what you’ve got, you’ll continue comparing it with everything else on offer and begin to think about your next acquisition, whether it may be material, professional or sentimental. And you’ll be wanting once again. Obviously, it’s quite the gold mine for any type of industry. Unhappiness and consumerism in a 2-for-1 pack.

So now you know: your wants have little to do with you, with your real needs and that much-extolled rational capacity you’re so proud of. Who knows? At this point, you may have already added a new wish to the list: not having read this article, having read it before, sharing it on LinkedIn to seem like a studious professional, calling a real psychologist to throw a Guide to Constructivist Psychotherapy at me or even (I could really hope) perhaps wanting to have written it yourself. If my arguments haven’t convinced you, you’ll always have that elegant resource of sending an ancient Chinese curse equally comprised of ancestral wisdom and thousand-year-old bad blood my way. Here’s to hoping all your wishes come true! But, just be careful… you must realise you’ll then be wanting something.

A day of looking towards the future with optimism and excitement, exploring new ideas and experiences, seeking ways to reinvent ourselves and connect with the next generations, with the aim of building brands that endure in the public’s memory. A day to share with experts and friends from the industry the best practices to stay fashionable.

Valuable insights were offered by the experts who participated in the event, leaving us their keys to achieving success in a constantly evolving market. They highlighted the importance of omnichannelity, personalization in e-commerce, and the identification of specific niches as key strategies to conquer new markets.

Furthermore, emerging trends and their impact on the sector were analyzed, from the crucial role of artificial intelligence and customer experience to the relevance of data, retail, e-commerce, and global expansion.

The crucial task of preserving the brand’s value in a highly competitive environment was also addressed, through the implementation of strategies that go beyond mere product offerings, betting on the creation of differentiated value.The Barcelona Fashion Summit 2024 offered an invaluable space for the exchange of ideas, collaboration, and, above all, inspiration. It leaves us with an optimistic view of the future of fashion, where passion, talent, sustainability, and creativity stand as engines for growth and evolution in the sector.

In this digital era, where immediacy and entertainment in real time prevail, we are facing a revolution in the way we consume and transmit content. Streaming has been consolidated to a large extent thanks to social media, showing a paradigm shift in the way we interact with the media.

We’ve talked to Jaume Cervera, an expert in signal management and production, to delve into the key differences between events streamed through social media and those broadcast traditionally on television. In addition, Jaume tells us how streaming, more than a simple content transmission technique, has become an essential element in omnichannel communication strategies, offering a two-way interaction and personalisation that the traditional medium does not allow.

1. How do streaming events on social networks differ from a traditional event broadcast on television?

Television is a system for transmitting images and sound at a distance via radio waves. In the case of cable television, the transmission takes place via a specialised network. The notion of television arose from the combination of the Greek word tele (“distance”) and the Latin term visio (“vision”). The concept refers to both the transmission system and the device that allows the images to be viewed (also called a television set), the television programming and the television station.

Streaming is a term from the English language that, despite not being part of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), is used to refer to a live transmission from the source to the user via the Internet. Consumption takes place simultaneously with downloading. This means that the individual does not have to download the data to his or her computer, phone or smart TV and then access it, but that both processes take place at the same time.

The main difference is that TV is a one-way communication channel (less and less) that can use different formats such as streaming and streaming is a way of watching/transmitting content live or almost live over the internet without taking up disk space (no downloading).

TV generates its own content and broadcasts it via broadcast and streaming systems through its own infrastructures and public, private and social media channels. TV infrastructures are very expensive and depend on licences and public tenders.

Social media itself is not a communication channel but a “publicly” available platform even for traditional TVs where anyone can broadcast as long as they accept its conditions and ethical rules.

2. In terms of communication, how relevant is streaming in an omnichannel strategy?

Streaming is used in everything and for everything. Remote video meetings are streaming. Content accessible from Smart TVs is streaming. The kitten videos that we can watch ad nauseam without stopping scrolling on Youtube or Tik-tok are streaming content. An ‘Influencer’ theorising about the existence of God with a theologian and a physicist in a podcast is streaming. Live footage of a volcano on a public TV channel on Youtube is streaming.

Generating streaming content for live and/or delayed viewing allows us to programme and produce events with very controlled costs, with a measurable impact factor in real time and with the capacity to generate bidirectionality with the audience in the case of being live. It allows to strengthen the interaction with the audience and improve the presence and notoriety in the digital world. The format, style and quality of the broadcast can also be controlled and moulded according to the communication objective.

But we can also stream private events either via social networks or with CDN infrastructures tailored to each event and this has some interesting advantages. Reducing the ecological footprint, improving work-life balance, reducing production costs, for example.

Let’s suppose that, in a face-to-face event, an Alzheimer’s congress in Stockholm, a Spanish doctor has to give a lecture for those present. She can connect from her own premises or one made available to her at her place of origin and interact with those present at the event. In the same way, a part of the audience may not have been able to access the event and watch it from their home/office, less planes, less fuel, less travel days, less costs.

3. Society is used to the immediacy of information, do you think this has influenced the relevance of streaming?

Evidently, technologies advance in the direction that the desires of society or part of it take and at the same time the influence is reciprocal, technologies condition society’s behaviour.

4. What differentiates the live format from other video content formats?

Until recently we had 3 formats:

1- Live: with an audience
2- Live: it happens in real time
3- Delayed (VOD): recorded with an audience or in a studio and broadcast when we decide to programme it.

And obviously we can combine Live and Live with recorded material.

Today I like to think that we have one more concept to use in the list which is: Hybrid. Where we can be generating live content with a personalised experience for the live audience and at the same time broadcasting live with a specific format for the audience while being able to include Augmented Reality, virtual environments and other technologies and integrate people into the broadcast who may not actually be on set. Create virtual environments etc.

5.  What do you think will be the trends in streaming in 2024?

We will continue to have hybrid events, more and more, because on the one hand we want to improve the physical human contact in which we want to meet, see and feel each other, but at the same time we follow a social trend that leads us to prioritise the following points:

1. Reducing ecological impact.

2. To contribute to the reconciliation of family or life.

3. Optimisation of resources.

With hybridisation in streaming we achieve all three objectives without losing proximity, human contact and multidirectionality.

6. Looking to the future, how do you think streaming could change or what could it lead to?

Hybridisation is very appealing, the inclusion of VR and augmented reality as well as virtual backgrounds. Immersion is why we like to watch movies and series, as well as play video games. There is a lot of research going on and curiosities that can already be realised and will become less expensive as they become standardised.

In the world of motorsport, communication is essential to connect with fans and expand the audience. Álvaro Martínez de Tejada, General Coordinator of F4 Spanish Championship and Eurocup-3, shares his vision on communication in championships with us, from building a distinctive image to creating valuable content and its importance, being a fundamental piece to engage the audience.

Additionally, we discuss the significance of streaming and the inclusion of championships on RTVE Play for the first time this year, where the reach has exceeded one million viewers. He also tells us about the challenges and obstacles that motorsport faces in the digitalization of communication.

In terms of communication, what do you consider essential for the championship?

The first thing is to have a very strong and distinctive image, so that people, when they see our content, know that it comes from our championships and not from any other. Then, generate content that is inspirational, that brings people closer to motorsport. In the end, we owe ourselves to the fans and to the people who truly love motorsports, and often, motorsport is perceived as something unattainable. We aim to do the opposite.

Our main goal is to communicate the reality of our world, be honest with our followers, and tell them what really happens here, which is what benefits them the most. Motorsport has many components beyond what is seen on television— a lot of sacrifice, hours at the circuit, travel, but also humility and simplicity. Transmitting all of this is crucial, and I believe we are on that path right now.

One of the distinctions of the championships’ social media is its audiovisual content. Do you believe it sets you apart from others and helps you better engage your audience?

Absolutely, in fact, it has always been our commitment from the beginning. In the quest to differentiate ourselves from other championships, we have always sought our own way of doing things, emphasizing audiovisual content. We believe it is the best way to bring the championships closer to the fans who follow us and make them feel involved in this reality. Naturally, motorsport is often perceived as something accessible to very few, and this is our way of bringing it into their lives. Undoubtedly, having audiovisual content is essential, and we will continue to do so, reinforcing it if necessary.

Regarding content strategy, what is your focus, branding, or reach?

I think you should first focus on branding and then strive for reach. It’s not about choosing one over the other but knowing when to apply each of them correctly. What we have done is focus on branding; currently, we have a super-strong, well-defined, and widely recognized brand image. This is what has set us apart from other F4 championships or Eurocup-3 levels. In this way, we have managed to generate very personal and unique content, making people loyal, and from there, seeking growth. But undoubtedly, if I had to choose one, I would first focus on branding.

In the digital realm, the RTVA Play platform has been added. Has the impact been positive compared to previous seasons?”

The broadcast of the third race each weekend of the F4 Spanish Championship has been a significant asset for us. Between live and deferred broadcasts (RTVE Play and Teledeporte), more than 1 million viewers have been able to enjoy the spectacle of our races, immersing themselves in a championship that can also be experienced easily from the circuit and where the future stars of motorsport take their first steps.

Regarding communication, what other challenges do you think the championships face in the new season?

With the F4 Spanish Championship well-established as a global benchmark and Eurocup-3 having received a warm welcome in its first year, the challenge once again is to maintain momentum without stagnating. It involves continuing to offer distinctive material and expanding a loyal community that is growing organically. If we were to name specific challenges, reaching more countries through their television networks is one of the significant goals we face in the coming years. Another task on our list is to become influencers on social media platforms of the new generations such as TikTok, where we were the first F4 championship to take the leap, and exploring other alternatives like WhatsApp or Instagram channels for fans and media.

In today’s rapidly evolving marketing landscape, businesses must constantly seek innovative and creative solutions to stand out. At The Kilite Agency, a digital and offline marketing agency based in Barcelona, our mission is to inspire brands to push the boundaries of conventional marketing and deliver tailored solutions that address the specific needs of each client.

Our team of communication, advertising, and public relations professionals are committed to innovation, creativity, and a culture of collaborative leadership. At our core, we see ourselves as people working with people, always seeking new ways to grow and learn in a rapidly evolving environment and keeping abreast of the latest trends and technologies. As part of our customer-centric approach, we utilize Carl Jung’s 12 archetypes to guide our communication strategies with a human-centered, personalized touch.

The Kilite’s Archetypal Persona: An Analysis

Jung’s 12 archetypes are characterized as follows:

1.The Innocent: purity, goodness, optimism, safety, simplicity.

2.The Everyman: belonging, realism, empathy, lack of pretense.

3.The Hero: courage, discipline, competence, perseverance, protecting others.

4.The Caregiver: compassion, generosity, comfort, helping others.

5.The Explorer: freedom, adventure, discovery, authenticity, ambition.

6.The Outlaw: rebellion, disruption, freedom, excitement.

7.The Lover: passion, admiration, intimacy, commitment, relationships.

8.The Creator: innovation, vision, imagination, creativity, originality.

9.The Jester: fun, joy, humor, light-heartedness, living in the moment.

10.The Sage: wisdom, intelligence, analysis, knowledge, truth.

11.The Magician: transformation, change, power, mystery, making dreams come true.

12.The Ruler: control, authority, responsibility, leadership, order.

Our analysis of The Kilite Agency’s brand persona using Jung’s archetypes reveals the following scores:

Olistic has been awarded the Digital Beauty Awards 2023 for the best start-up brand in the digital category and is a finalist for the best cosmetics brand.At The Kilite, we interviewed Alejandra Nueno, Digital Customer Experience Manager, who shares her opinion on the viral case of #olistic and the importance of knowing your brand’s values to establish an effective communication strategy.

Beyond an advertising strategy is like a journey to a remote and unknown place. It is a world full of mysteries, challenges, and wonders, where creativity is the epicenter of everything, and one must adapt to it.

Creativity in an advertising strategy is like a beacon in the night; it lights the path forward, bringing clarity to the darkest ideas, allowing messages to shine with originality and freshness. However, creativity is not an infinite resource that spontaneously springs forth; it requires an open mindset, a passion for exploration, and a willingness to go beyond conventional limits.

Adaptability, on the other hand, is like a compass. In an ever-changing ocean, where trends can shift in an instant, adaptability is crucial for navigating successfully. It allows us to readjust our course when the wind changes direction, helps us explore new territories, and enables us to respond effectively to changes in audience behavior and expectations.

However, even with creativity and adaptability on our side, there is no guarantee that the journey will be smooth. This is where anti-fragility comes into play, like a ship’s hull capable of withstanding the onslaught of the biggest waves and the fiercest storms. It allows us to face setbacks, rejections, and criticisms, giving us the resilience to continue despite obstacles.

The advertising strategy can be a wild and creative journey, but it is precisely this madness and creativity that make it so exciting and rewarding. In this journey, each campaign is a new port, each ad is a new island to discover, and each idea is a new adventure to live.So, always remember: creativity is your wind, adaptability is your compass, and anti-fragility is your anchor. With these three elements, you are ready to embark on this incredible journey that is the advertising strategy. Good luck on your journey, and may the winds of creativity always be in your favor!

In the ever-changing world of fashion, where constant reinvention is a necessity, innovation and creativity lead the transformative experience known as 080 Barcelona Fashion Week.

Once again, Barcelona Fashion Week showcases its avant-garde in design, fashion, and trends. However, we cannot overlook the social impact it exerts, thanks to the crucial role of digital communication.

080 Barcelona Fashion is a platform that seeks to transform the fashion industry, not only in Catalonia but also at the national and international levels. It is more than just a runway; it propels change through sustainability, circularity, and diversity in fashion, transcending traditional boundaries through dialogue, reflection, and the exploration of new forms of expression and consumption within the sector.

We sat down with Marta Coca Ortiga, Director of 080 Barcelona Fashion and the Fashion Area of the CCAM (Consorci de Comerç, Artesania i Moda de la Generalitat de Catalunya), and discussed the challenge posed by this digital transformation. Marta shared insights into integrating fashion, innovation, and the digital world, unlocking new possibilities for reinvention within the fashion industry.

What is the biggest communication challenge at a Fashion Week?

I believe it lies in ensuring that content and communication are growing and developing simultaneously. It’s crucial for me not to select content without knowing the communication objectives, and vice versa. Instead, both strategies should work in synergy.

Depending on the content and communication challenges that arise, we adjust and align our strategies. The initial seasons are usually tough, but as they progress, all teams – both digital marketing and communication teams – evolve, and things become more solid.

Currently, we face a significant challenge in positioning the platform with the goal of putting brands on the international radar. Collections serve as our means of expression. At 080 Barcelona Fashion, we feature brands of all kinds, from more traditional to highly futuristic and emerging ones. Our target audience spans from millennials to the increasingly powerful Generation Z, which is integrating into the consumer base. That’s why we believe that both online and offline strategies must go hand in hand to avoid any imbalance.

Is there anything you consider essential, something without which you couldn’t communicate?

I couldn’t communicate if Catalonia didn’t have a robust fashion ecosystem. If all of this were artificial, if we didn’t have emerging designers, if we didn’t have established brands with this tradition, we couldn’t host a Fashion Week like we have today with our unique touch, so distinctly Barcelona.

In the digital realm, how significant is digital communication for you in a Fashion Week of this magnitude?

Although I’m not a native of the digital era, nowadays, the digital world is everything. I believe that in the current times, people navigate omnichannel environments, meaning that strategies across different communication channels must go hand in hand for your audience to seamlessly transition from one path to another. What is clear is that digital platforms help create a community, and nowadays, one cannot showcase values and build audience loyalty without a solid and engaged community. That’s why 080 Barcelona Fashion has specialized teams and increasingly digital brands, aiming to foster a “080 movement,” values, and consequently, engagement with communities that go beyond the content offered in each edition. This ensures that the community remains connected to 080, embracing its values and uniqueness.