Shopping the day after a major holiday really wears you out....

Yesterday was another day that we did not have to go to the classroom, but had a field trip to DKV.  Our topics for the day were International Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility and DKV was a great example of CSR in action.  Spain has a national health system so health insurance is free to all the people, but DKV is a private insurer, marketed towards the wealthier segment, that offers benefits such as faster access to care, better facilities and a larger choice of providers to choose from.  The unique quality that DKV provides is that 60% of their employed staff in the call center have some form of physical disability.  DKV trains these employees and helps place them in other work areas if they choose to leave the company, or they can stay with the company if they choose.




Silvia, our instructor for the day with our tour guide.

  Key items taken from lecture:
Top 5 global brands of 2010

• Google
• IBM
• Apple
• Microsoft
• Coca-Cola

The four Spanish companies in top 100:

1. Zara
2. Santander
3. BBVA
4. Movistar

The new trend for 2010 of companies that made top 100 was maintaining and increasing budgets to support brand loyalty.  This was the first year that all BRICs were represented in the top 100, as well (these include Brazil, Russia, India, and China).  The new trend is referred to as schizophrenic consumerism patterns where people are spending more money on their health, such as oral care, healthy fast foods and items such as Bud Light in order to maintain a healthier lifestyle so less time or money is needed to be spent on such things as dental care, etc.  People are also spending more money on unhealthy small indulgences, such as alcohol/beer, tobacco, fast food, and coffee.  The new trend also includes more control (such as only using debit cards, shopping at small stores so as not to be swayed to buy additional items, and shopping online for exactly what is needed), technology (to help organize and simplify your life and cell phones), and responsible consumption (using more middle brands instead of premier brands and cutting back on the use of water bottles).

We then changed gears and started talking about Corporate Social Responsibility and analyzing whether it was cut back during the latest financial crisis that we were in.  Studies have been performed to see how important green items are and green behaviors and if customers expect responsibility of companies to tackle these issues.  Silvia showed us a great youtuve video of Severn Suzuki and if you have never seen this before, please take the seven minutes to listen:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPx5r35Aymc. 

All in all, it was a very intriguing discussion and has probably been my favorite topic and field trip thus far in to the program.

We returned to our hotel around 2pm and decided to take a siesta before attacking La Rambla for some mega-shopping.  The sales were out en masse since Thursday had been the big holiday for Spain (I'd have to gather that it was more important than Christmas) and just like in the States after Thanksgiving and Christmas there are huge sales.  When we came off of the metro, we were astonished to find the area packed with people shopping for the best deals they could find.  We attempted a handful of shops, but realized it just wasn't worth the frustration and the constant shoving so we headed to a little bistro to eat a light snack and drink a cup of coffe.

Cafe con leche!

After this brief rest, we continued to look around, but decided that we were really ready for dinner so we headed back to a restaurant that the group frequented a couple nights back as the owner had promised a bottle of champagne if we came back on Friday night.  We got there around 7, but forgetting that Spain does not traditionally begin dinner at the earliest at 8, we were disappointed to find the doors locked so we headed back out to kill some time till 8 (as we assumed it would be open by then).  Around 8:30 we found our way back and this time they were open, HOORAY!  Nicki, Val, and Ernesto ordered the seafood paella, but Colleen and myself ordered a plate of spaghetti to share as neither of us were really wanting seafood that night.  The owner/waiter delivered on his promise of free champagne along with a free pitcher of sangria and two free tapas.  After dinner we decided to call it a night and headed back to the metro station so that we could find our beds for the night.

Our favorite owner/waiter!

 

Colleen and myself with our spaghetti.



    

Seafood paella.

We had another successful day and evening in Barcelona and we could not wait to start our next day which included a trip to the Torres winery and whatever other adventures we could include in the rest of the day.