Proa Comunicación organized the convocation and communication of the first VAT convention held in Spain, the Madrid VAT Forum. Carried out by the office of Fernando Matesanz of Spanish VAT Services, under the title ‘The reform of the Common System of VAT – Towards a new era in intra-community VAT’, the conference brought together more than 160 lawyers specializing in Tax Law and journalists interested in learning about the implications that the changes will have on European community regulations, on February 14 at the Miguel Ángel Hotel in Madrid.
The objective of this event was to analyze and explain to a very specialized audience all the changes that the European intra-community VAT will undergo until 2021. Some modifications could be considered as part of a small ‘revolution’ with the objective of harmonizing certain aspects of the e-commerce of goods and services, fighting against fraud and proposing a definitive system of taxation at the cargo’s destination in intra-community trade.
Proa Comunicación started working on this project from the very beginning. Thus, Proa took charge of creating the landing page to make reservations, designing all corporate material, convening journalists, law firms, tax advisors, business associations, etc., managing interviews and other communication actions before and after the event, as well as preparing, disseminating and following-up on several press releases, taking photographs and videos and monitoring their impact.
The primary objective was to publicize the convocation and realization of the Madrid VAT Forum in order to attract the attendance of a specialized audience. Other objectives were to obtain the greatest possible coverage of the forum in the media and to position Fernando Matesanz as a specialist in this topic and a credible source of information on this particular tax.
The result was the attendance of more than 160 lawyers, most of them prosecutors, and the generation of more than 80 news stories and mentions in both specialized and generalist media outlets, including the publication of several interviews with the director of Spanish VAT Services, Fernando Matesanz, conducted prior to the conference. In addition, this positioned Matesanz as a credible source in various reports detailing this tax. Additionally, several opinion articles in relation to changes specific to this taxation scheme were published in both economic and specialized media outlets, in the months prior to the conference and after it was held.