Barcelona is a successful city with enormous potential, considered an international benchmark in quality of life, culture and diversity. The “Barcelona brand” not only enjoys global recognition, but also national and local recognition. In recent years, the Catalan capital has competed head-to-head with other large cities in innovation, new technologies and the generation of digital ecosystems.
This growth would not be possible without the participation of the companies involved in the modernization of the city. This is the case of Clear Channel, a company that operates in the outdoor advertising sector, and that can help Barcelona face with guarantees the challenge of transforming urban space, with a coherent and responsible digitalization model, where it is offered a product at the service of people. Many steps forward have been taken, but the city cannot be left behind.
The answer is yes, although this requires a collective effort and a shared vision of what is aspired for the future of the city. Barcelona has resources and opportunities that it can take advantage of to increase its prestige and charm, but it also needs to face new challenges and overcome its weaknesses with courage and responsibility. Clear Channel is committed to doing so among all the actors involved, with the public-private collaboration that has helped so much to achieve the prosperity of the city.
The company is committed to several of the challenges that Barcelona faces, such as increasing the use of public transport or reducing air and noise pollution, the effects of which not only impact the health and well-being of citizens, but also the climate. and biodiversity. Clear Channel can also participate in improving the city's identity by offering service information to Barcelona residents. The communication provided by outdoor advertising generates new income for those who advertise and, at the same time, affects business and social progress. We must not forget that advertising actions, which sometimes provoke criticism, can be beneficial for citizens and favor the activation of the economy, commerce and employment.
Clear Channel's corporate motto is “a platform for brands.”
Advertising street furniture, for example, can contribute to improving the aesthetic and cultural aspect of the streets thanks to innovative and attractive supports that integrate with the environment, highlighting local heritage and identity. Thus, an adequate deployment of digital screens integrated into bus shelters can also help create reference points with useful information for Barcelona residents.
In fact, Clear Channel has deployed municipal communication channels on outdoor advertising screens in other cities, which contribute to improving information and citizen participation. News, events, campaigns or other initiatives of public interest are disseminated in an effective and accessible way. In this way, citizens can be informed through digital screens about traffic and weather conditions, the cultural agenda or municipal alerts. Interaction with institutions can also be encouraged through the use of QR codes, social networks or mobile applications.
Barcelona is the world capital of mobile phones, the headquarters of the Mobile World Congress, the most important congress in the world in the sector. It is also the most emblematic hub city in southern Europe in digital ecosystems and entrepreneurship. For all these reasons, Clear Channel, as a company committed to urban digitalization, wants to have more influence if possible on achieving a greater transformation of the city, which adjusts to that desire for modernity that all its congressmen, digital pioneers and citizens expect of it.
Madrid, Valencia, Seville and Malaga are already working on this model of urban digital transformation, with innovative outdoor advertising, at the forefront of the times we live in. This positioning is now key in Barcelona as a guarantee of innovation. The city can also be a true Smart City of reference at the European level.
Jordi Sáez, CEO of Clear Channel Spain, comments on what street advertising furniture contributes to the city: “At the end of the 20th century, companies in our sector simply offered a shelter-marquee on the streets, as a useful and basic service to metropolitan transport companies. But the needs of cities, citizens and technology have evolved and now much more can be demanded and offered. Related to innovation and one of the main challenges of the city of Barcelona, Clear Channel has patents and prototypes of different technologies, of digital urban furniture that additionally purify and improve air quality, which, as these devices are integrated into bus shelters, create public spaces of clean air for the people waiting in them. These types of technologies have a positive impact on health, encourage the use of public transportation, in addition to being aligned with the Smart City concept. Clear Channel is very involved with Barcelona and has already helped transform the city by implementing Bicing in 2006, which was considered the best public bicycle transport system in the world. Now, thanks to outdoor advertising and at no cost to the city council and the people of Barcelona, new services can be implemented that would improve the city and the lives of citizens."
These solutions, which would have no cost for citizens and which additionally generate significant income for municipal coffers, are just some of the measures implementable in urban furniture that are financed thanks to advertising and that could help Barcelona to be a benchmark as an example. city to live in this area. Of course, there are many more, and all of them require the involvement and commitment of all the actors involved: public administrations, economic and social agents, citizen entities and the citizens themselves. Only in this way can we build a more sustainable, safer, more democratic, more diverse, fairer and more humane Barcelona. A Barcelona that recovers its essence and projects itself again with global leadership, that opens to the world and integrates into its environment. A Barcelona that continues to be a source of pride for its inhabitants and an inspiration for other cities in the world.
