City leaves its mark on the world with unique 'Malaga loves...' campaign

Malaga is making its mark on the world with a unique way of promoting its major attractions: with Picasso-style murals in major cities. The city's transformation, which has led to its position on the map of most popular urban destinations began almost 20 years ago with the figure of the famous painter Picasso Ruiz Picasso as the standard-bearer of the cultural offer to which the capital of the Costa del Sol clung for its tourist development.

And the artist was once again the protagonist of a new promotional campaign for the city which is attracting tourists at a faster rate than other Andalusian cities and which is in the spotlight of tourist investment, including the large luxury hotel firms.

Malaga has now landed in Munich, Basel, Seoul and Shanghai through a campaign which captures its main attractions in large murals that the Malaga artist Eduardo Luque, 'Lalone', paints in places of great affluence and in which the main message is 'Malaga loves...'.

The initiative will soon also reach New York, Miami and Hong Kong, after leaving its mark in Munich, Basel, Seoul and Shanghai, where the promotional mural could be seen in the Pudong metro station, Jiaotong University and Xintiandi with murals measuring fourteen by four metres, fourteen by two, and 3.22 by 1.52 metres, respectively.

It all began in the framework of the Picasso Year 2023, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Spanish painter's death. The first campaign was in Munich with a mural measuring 13 metres wide by 4.5 metres long, created by 'Lalone' with the collaboration of the German artist Cam Temizgezek, in which the potential of the capital of the Costa del Sol as an urban and cultural destination is shown in a strategic location in this German city.

The figure of a person selling Malaga's iconic biznaga flowers, the cathedral, the 'espeto' sardine as the staple of local gastronomy, the memories of Picasso's childhood summers or the Phoenician eye of the ships of Malaga that the universal genius Pablo Ruiz Picasso also drew in many of his works, including the famous Guernica. A visual journey that invited visitors to get to know Malaga.

The councillor for tourism at Malaga city hall, Jacobo Florido, stressed at the inauguration at the end of April that "this project, carried out in collaboration with the Spanish Tourist Office in Munich, aims to create a place for creative encounters. It is a mural for the senses, where admiring it, you can hear, see, taste, smell and touch, and it is activated in different ways to lead the visitor from the wall to the essence of Malaga. Like Picasso, the proposal fragments the vision and suggests alternatives to the viewer".

The idea travelled five months later to Basel, the enclave chosen as the border city between France, Germany and Switzerland. Malaga loves Basel' was the title of an artistic work of art measuring 10 metres high by nine metres wide created in the heart of this Swiss city and next to some of Basel's main museums, a place frequented by tens of thousands of people throughout the year.

A mural in which the most recognisable icons and corners of both cities, such as their cathedrals, are depicted in a way that is a way of bringing Malaga's culture closer and which aroused the interest of the Swiss artist Dest, who collaborated in a space next to the 'Lalone' mural, completing the work in a city that treasures a history that links him in a very special way to the genius painter from Malaga.

It is about the event that took place in 1967, when two works by Picasso belonging to a family and deposited in the Basel Art Museum (Kunstmuseum Basel) were put up for sale for 8,400,000 Swiss francs in order to cover the debts of their owners. The government released CHF 6,000,000 for their purchase, but the remaining CHF 2,400,000 was subject to the success of a popular vote.

A referendum was then held in which the students and youth of the city took centre stage in favour of the purchase, demonstrating with slogans such as 'All you need is Pablo', a reference to the Beatles' hit song 'All you need is love'. Once the goal was achieved, the news reached an elderly Picasso who, moved by the gesture, donated four more works to the city with a clear recipient: 'the young people of Basel'.

Jump to Asia

This new success prompted Malaga city hall to take another big leap. Its next objective was the Asian market to attract travellers who are passionate about culture and highly sought after by the tourist sector due to their high level of spending. Why not conquer them with art? Well, it's a done deal. At the end of the year, 'Malaga loves...' landed in Shanghai.

The murals feature icons and recognisable corners of Malaga mixed with those of Shanghai. The promotion also featured the collaboration of prominent Chinese influencers who publicised the Malaga campaign on their social media accounts.

And from Shanghai to Seoul, the last stop for now in this 'street marketing' project and promotion of Malaga through urban culture. In the South Korean capital, the place chosen was a pedestrian walkway in the busy Seocho-gu district. There, the 245-square-metre mural, spread over a 65-metre-long and 2.6 metres high wall, promoted Picasso, monuments such as the cathedral and the Roman theatre, and anthropological and cultural aspects of both Malaga and South Korea, inviting passers-by to get to know the destination, highlighting the cultural, gastronomic and historical attractions of the city.

Like in Basel, the mural highlights the aspects that unite Malaga and Seoul, in terms of the coexistence of tradition and modernity in architecture and traditions. It is worth remembering that residents of South Korea list Spain as their top European destination and the second long-distance country after the United States.

Furthermore, Turespaña points out that Andalucía is the third region in which these visitors spend the most, representing 13% of the total amount spent in Spain, after Catalonia and the Madrid region. Tourists are on the rise in Malaga, with a growth rate of 13.11% up to April compared to the same period last year.

Interesting experience

Eduardo Luque stresses that these projects have been a "very interesting experience and a great opportunity to make myself known at an international level. A very important project". This artist, who specialises in spray painting, is self-taught and has been passionate about drawing since childhood, moving on to graffiti in his youth and a professional artist for 15 years.

"Although I'm not very good at languages and the conversation didn't flow very well, they did comment that it seemed very difficult to paint like that with spray paint, even though it's a technique like any other. The murals caused surprise," says the artist known as Lalone, explaining that this project involves a great deal of work beforehand on the sketch designs and then on their execution.

He recalls that in Munich and Basel he spent a week on the murals and that the most complicated was the one in South Korea because of the time it took to complete it. In Shanghai it took him three months to complete the work. "It was a very enriching experience," he says.

Jacobo Florido stresses that this is the "biggest promotional campaign that has ever been done. No region has ever had such an action in countries such as Switzerland, China or the United States". He went on to say, "We are very happy because the prestige of Malaga requires such a unique and spectacular promotion."

Seoul will not be the last stop. Florido says that he is working on a campaign for New York, Miami, and even returning to Asia with 'Malaga loves Hong Kong'.