The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented yesterday at the Teatro Real in Madrid the second installment of the campaign Spain for Sure –España, por supuesto-, which will star well-known foreign faces living in Spain, such as the coach Diego Simeone, the violinist Ara Malikian, the secretary general of SEGIB, Rebeca Grynspann, or the singer Lucrecia.
Spain is an “open, tolerant, diverse and supportive country and we should be proud to claim it”, declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, during the closing ceremony. For this reason, it is necessary to make “an effort to viralize the message of a safe and determined Spain in the world”, she continued.
Unlike the first part of the campaign, which featured universal Spaniards such as Rafa Nadal, Isabel Coixet, José Andrés or Pau Gasol, among others, the new set of videos is starred by foreign personalities who live in Spain and who “explain in first person what our country offers to those who wish to work, study, invest and enjoy their quality of life”, according to Foreign Affairs. The videos were recorded without a pre-established script and the protagonists participated free of charge, as in last year’s campaign.
Specifically, the protagonists of this second installment of the campaign -which bears the signature of Manu Cavanilles, creative director of the Presidency of the Government, and is made up of seven individual videos, one per participant- are Rebeca Grynspan, Costa Rican Secretary General of SEGIB -based in Madrid-; Danish winemaker and businessman Peter Sisseck, Cuban singer Lucrecia, Argentine Diego Simeone, coach of Atlético de Madrid, Italian physicist Caterina Biscari, SEAT president Wayne Griffiths of the United Kingdom, and Lebanese violinist of Armenian descent Ara Malikian, acclaimed worldwide.
The aim of the campaign is to reinforce the international confidence and self-confidence of Spaniards, for which “we wanted to count on foreigners who live in Spain and who have developed part of their careers in our country”. According to the latest report The Image of Spain in the World, by the Elcano Royal Institute and the Reputation Institute, during the last decade Spaniards have valued themselves below how they are valued in the rest of the world, and although this trend has been changing, the level of national self-esteem in Spain is still far from that of the USA, Germany or the United Kingdom. In contrast, according to this report and others like it, “Spain’s international reputation remains robust and has hardly been affected by the pandemic, thanks to structural pillars such as language, culture and the professionalism of the Spanish people”, according to Foreign Affairs.
Spain for Sure is the result of a public-private collaboration promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through España Global, together with the CEOE, the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, the Leading Brands of Spain Forum and, on this occasion, the association Multinationals for Brand Spain. It will also have the support of RTVE, AENA, ADIF and Iberia until next summer to guarantee its presence on television, radio, airports, trains and planes, with special attention to international connectivity points.
The first part of the campaign was launched in June 2020 to attract tourism again by projecting a positive image of our country abroad, in full de-escalation after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Foreign Affairs sources, that first part obtained “positive” results, since the videos were seen by more than four million people in Spain and the rest of the world thanks to the work of Embassies, Consulates, social networks and Spanish and foreign media.
Regarding this second part, Foreign Affairs has chosen these dates for the launch of Spain for Sure because it considers that we are at a “relatively favorable” juncture thanks to the vaccination campaigns against COVID-19. The new campaign will be mainly aimed at the most strategic markets for Spain, both in terms of the origin of investments (EU or the United States) and the origin of tourists (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or Northern Europe).
