Barcelona
LAURENT COLETTE, the former CMO at Barcelona and AS Roma, is now consulting firm Advance's VP, strategy & marketing. Prior to joining Advance -- whose clients include the IOC -- in March '17, he was Barcelona's CMO from '10 until Nov. 15, when he took the same role with the Italian club. He led the Serie A club's marketing department until he joined Advance. Colette is working closely with Advance CEO JOSEP CORTADA, who founded the company after leading the FC Barcelona Foundation from '10-16. Advance is staffed by a "team of 20 collaborators," including part-time employees. Colette added that he and Cortada have a number of experts in various fields internationally that they can mobilize on a contract basis for particular projects. Colette spoke to SBD Global about Advance's goals, reuniting with Cortada and his company's competition.
On his experience with the FC Barcelona Foundation ...
Laurent Colette: The story starts with FC Barcelona because the founder of Advance, Josep Cortada, was the CEO of FC Barcelona's Foundation, which is considered the most advanced foundation (of a football club) in the world. I was CMO of Barcelona at the time and it was considered part of the identity of the club to go in that direction: using the athletes as ambassadors to provide hope for children all over the world. We were a pioneer in the fact that in 2008, we put UNICEF on the front of our jersey, and that agreement continued. We also developed many agreements all over the world in order to support the idea that football can help make a better world. Of course it doesn't change the world in two days, but at least it's a modest contribution.
On Advance's mission ...
Colette: The idea is to provide to the actors in the world of sports -- mainly football -- tools to build some initiatives around social marketing. Some people define social marketing with Facebook, Twitter and so on. Some others define it as when football and sport are used to transmit values and good habits to kids and young people. ... The idea is to create some programs for companies that consider social responsibility as a new way of communication. We also develop foundations for clubs or for players, and create synergies between different actors, partners, clubs, players and public authorities to develop socially-tailored programs and assure some return for people who are investing money.
On the company's current partners ...
Colette: There's already a portfolio of customers. We work with the IOC. We do some consultancy for OlympAfrica, a foundation from the IOC that is active in more than 40 African countries. It provides sports and community centers for youth. We have an assessment and consulting role with them. We work with FutbolNet, which is a program developed by FC Barcelona. We are also working with the Qatar Autonomous Government. We have done a program called Més Que Sport (More Than Sport,) which is aimed at training coaches and grassroots educators working with kids every day, and making sure that apart from pure soccer techniques, they also develop good values for the kids, eating habits, gender equality and conflict resolution. When you deal with kids for so many hours, you face different situations of life, and you've got to have some policies as well. It's like a second mother, sometimes, a soccer coach. ... We have worked with [Spanish second division side] Granada. We created their foundation, developed their objectives and helped make their action plan. We are in contact at this moment with other clubs in Europe to do that because, of course, we take benefits from our FC Barcelona experience, but also the experience we've gained recently with other stakeholders. For a club, it's not easy to start from scratch -- you can make some mistakes. It's difficult to reinvent the wheel. We provide a new approach.
On Advance's competitors ...
Colette: Unless I'm wrong, I haven't seen something very similar. There are people doing some education programs in football, some coaching and some research of talent, which is different from us. But the whole social approach, integrating consulting and offering full management of programs, execution and operation, I don't think so. ... Through the contacts we have had so far on the national and international levels, no one has spoken to us from competitors. We have to be careful not to raise some interest, but at this moment, we can say that we are relatively new and pioneering in that sense.
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