The roundtable
On September 24, Carlos Corral, CEO of Baud, took part as an expert in IPMARK's Branding & Packaging roundtable in Madrid. He shared the table with professionals from Interbrand, Peter Schmidt Group and AEBRAND, the Spanish Association of Branding Companies, with Ana Egido, editor-in-chief of IPMARK, moderating. You can read Pilar Chacón's report (in Spanish).
We argued that an important part of the future of consultancies lies in training client teams and giving them systems to apply the strategy on their own.
Clients need to be able to apply the strategy themselves
A brand strategy makes sense when it adds to the bottom line, and that requires the client's team to know how to apply it day to day. Production keeps getting faster and cheaper, and far more people can do it. Relying on an outside partner for every small deliverable will soon stop making sense.
We've spent years helping companies work autonomously with brand platforms and systems designed for professionals. What has changed is who uses them: now it's also a sales team preparing its presentations, a product team prototyping with AI or an agent writing content. Brand systems have to adapt to these new users.
Companies know more about brand, but they don't always know how to judge the work
CEOs and managing directors know far more about brand today than they did ten or fifteen years ago, and brand sits closer and closer to business decisions. At the same time, we're entering a no man's land.
Some companies present genuine AI slop internally: strategies made with AI without any care, with no experience behind them and without giving the model even minimal context. It also happens in companies that barely use AI. A junior with a free tool can arrive tomorrow with a complete strategy, and their manager may sign off on it. Many organizations lack the criteria, the processes and the leadership to tell good work from bad work, or from work that is plainly dangerous.
And a bad strategy that looks like it works is the most dangerous kind, because nobody questions it.
When everyone can execute, the value is in deciding
Everyone will be able to execute everything. When production is easy, the value lies in knowing what to do, how to do it and where to draw the line, and that takes experience. Small teams with that experience and good systems will be able to do what used to take an entire department.
That's why our work is changing. Together with the client, we build systems that organize how the brand is managed: clear rules, review processes and context prepared so AI tools work well. We also train teams to use them and to spot when something doesn't fit.
A more autonomous client doesn't make us less valuable. It makes our value easier to see.
What are we for?
It's the uncomfortable question consultancies and agencies have to ask themselves if production keeps getting easier. We're here to create value and wealth for the companies we work with. Models don't do that on their own yet, and even less so without someone directing them and giving them the right context.
The best thing we can leave behind in a company is a team that no longer needs us for the small things.
Thanks to IPMARK and to everyone at the table. It's a pleasure to share a conversation with people like this.