Dr. David López
David López, Dean of the Full-Time MBA programme at the business school Esade and Numerary Member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (READ), addresses the relationship between the Spanish retail company Zara, part of the Inditex group, and the Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, following his appearance at the popular show during the latest American football Super Bowl final wearing an outfit by the brand, in the article “What Zara And Bad Bunny Teach Us About The New Economics Of Cultural Relevance”, published in the digital edition of “Forbes” magazine on 31 May. For the expert, this collaboration is not just another fashion campaign; it represents a profound change in how brands generate value in an era when attention is abundant, but meaning is scarce.
“For decades, Zara, Inditex’s flagship brand, built one of the most successful retail models in history thanks to its speed, operational excellence and supply chain innovation. Unlike many of its competitors, it rarely relied on celebrity endorsements. The strength of the brand lay in its ability to interpret trends and bring them to market faster than almost any other brand. The collaboration with Bad Bunny suggests an evolution in that formula. Instead of simply selling fashion, Zara is investing in cultural meaning”, the expert considers.
For the academic, this alliance illustrates three key tensions in the future of branding: scale versus identity, as global brands dilute the sense of belonging when they expand massively; the limits of manufactured authenticity, as authenticity emerges from genuine connections with pre-existing cultural ecosystems; and culture as a competitive advantage, since in a world where products, supply chains and business models are easily copied, cultural legitimacy becomes a scarce and hard-to-reproduce strategic resource. López concludes that Zara and Bad Bunny show that winning brands will no longer compete only for market share or for making the best products, but for becoming part of the stories that people tell about themselves, highlighting cultural narrative as the new most valuable asset.
Photography by Thomas8047, en PxHere
López holds a PhD in Digital Strategy from the International University of Catalonia, is an engineer in Electronics and Telecommunications and holds a master’s degree in Project Management. He also holds an MBA from Esade and the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in the United States. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Chile, the Catholic University of Córdoba in Argentina, and the University of São Paulo in Brazil, and has recently been appointed a visiting researcher at Boston University in recognition of his scientific work in digital marketing, e-commerce, strategy, and digital transformation in business.
He joined the Royal Academy last October with the speech “Relative Singularity in Marketing: Technology and Humanity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, in which he analyses the concept of singularity and its evolution, as well as the applications of artificial intelligence in marketing. In the business sphere, he has more than 20 years of professional experience in information technology. He has founded several start-ups and consulting firms. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Club Marketing Barcelona, a member of the Board of Directors of GrausTIC and Vice-President of the Barcelona Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
