If you can avoid marketing, don’t do it
In this episode of B—TALKS, we sit down with Guillem Graell, former CMO of FC Barcelona, co-founder of D2F Partners and Managing Partner at Everesting, to talk about branding, business and an idea that has shaped much of his career: putting the fan at the centre.
After years working with consumer brands, Guillem joined FC Barcelona with a very different challenge: how do you build a brand when millions of people already have a deep emotional connection with it?
In sports, many of the usual rules of marketing are reversed. You don’t have to go out and find an audience. The audience comes to you. The challenge is understanding your fans, knowing who they are and building a direct relationship that goes far beyond the game.
We talk about how Guillem brought this thinking to Barça through brand, data, content and Direct-to-Fan models. We also get into projects such as BLM and Barça Studios, and why having a huge community means little if you don’t have the infrastructure to understand it and create something relevant for it.
Today, the same thinking continues through his work at D2F Partners and Everesting: building brands around communities that don’t just consume, but participate, identify with them and feel part of something bigger.
Watch the full episode.