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docommunication a first investigation into the communicative behaviour of italian consortia

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10 anniversary 2002 2012 foundation for the protection and the valorization of quality agri-food products qualivita.it qualigeo.eu

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docommunication a first investigation into the communicative behaviour of italian consortia

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docommunication a first investigation into the communicative behaviour of italian consortia study by carried out by in collaboration with associazione italiana consorzi indicazioni geografiche scientific coordinators of the project alberto mattiacci ­ university of roma la sapienza mauro rosati ­ qualivita foundation head of research mihaela gavrila ­ university of roma la sapienza research mihaela gavrila university of roma la sapienza sara ritucci university of roma la sapienza graphics and layout maria teresa ciacci translated by joanna ledgard published by fondazione qualivita piazza matteotti 30 53100 siena web qualivita.it qualigeo.eu mail info@qualivita.it collana quaderni qualivita final print siena 29 marzo 2012

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summary presentation by mauro rosati general secretary qualivita foundation the communication of dos a battle with many allies by alberto mattiacci head of scientific observatory docommunication introduction introduction by mihaela gavrila head of research docommunication the results the results by mihaela gavrila and sara ritucci 1 communicating quality vs the quality of communication the main facts 1.1 advertising is not for everyone especially in television 1.2 do consortia divided by communication 2 communication management of certified productions absolute value 3 quality and italian food production 3.1 the structure of the sites 3.2 the quality of web site presentation 4 the echo of quality how internet users interpret italian products of excellence 5 quality meets social pdo pgi and tsg on the social network 5.1 snapshot 5.2 context 5.3 best practices of consortia 5.4 parmigiano reggiano consortia 5.5 other consortia 7

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summary 5.6 passive facebook 6 main trends what happens in social environments 6.1 facebook the terrible beauty of abundance is that which leads us to choose e larabee 6.2 trust strengthens interaction surveys and questions for users 6.3 glocal events the internet as a cultural adhesive 6.4 contests from spectators/actors to actors 6.5 eating wisely well-being and/is safety 7 final conclusions 8

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presentation by mauro rosati general secretary qualivita foundation docommunication report ­ a first investigation into the communicative behaviour of italian consortia thought up by the qualivita foundation as an initial tool of reflection for all the subjects which work in the field of communication and marketing of pdo pgi agri-food products starting with european policy decision makers who at this stage should redefine ways of accessing funds for agri-food promotion the productive-distributive system and consumption are passing through a stage of profound change which needs to be accompanied by a parallel readjustment of the communication strategies that businesses use today a need which is rendered even more urgent by a scenario in which the actual way of communicating has been revolutionised by the diffusion of digital technology the amount of sources for the transmission of information have multiplied as have the opportunities for interacting and exchanging between the sender and receiver of promotional messages the change in progress also represents a challenge for the world of do productions which must adopt suitable analysis tools and embrace opportunities to reinforce their ability to promote themselves and to make a name for themselves on the market an ability which after all is part of their dna if they have been recognised as designations of origin it is because they were able to promote themselves over time acquiring fame and reputation by communicating the qualities which make them unique with a form of marketing that unites with both experiential and traditional marketing creating a mix of unique logic and tools that is rendered indispensable by the nature of the productions themselves paradoxically it was in fact with the tour court application of traditional marketing that do products saw their communicative ability diminish the result being finding themselves marginalised in a more limited market space which in the meantime had been conquered by products that required a more simple form of promotion from a content view point traditional marketing has therefore revealed itself as being the weak point for dos because it is less suitable for effectively communicating and transmitting the distinctive features and value of the products hence the need to introduce different marketing based more on emotions and intangibility that which is offered by experiential marketing the objective of the report which is not intended to be comprehensive is that of being the first to contribute to the investigation into communication strategies for do productions italy was chosen as the vantage point given the size of the sector in terms of numbers ­ italy has the highest number of pdo pgi stg products in the eu ­ and due to its potential to develop within the sphere of the agri-food sector which still 9

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plays a strategic role in contributing to the national and european economy the report offers itself as food for thought on the subject in the knowledge that in order to come to define suitable and effective marketing in respect to the specificity of quality agri-food more experiences in the communication management of do productions as well as italian ones merit analysis and close examination from an institutional perspective seeing the eu s significant financial commitment to promotion policies our hope is that the results of this investigation can offer useful elements for addressing community and national choices as well as those of supply chain organisations contributing to the improved use of available resources in our opinion and of great strategic importance this includes the coordination of communication management between the different stages of the supply chain particularly between consortia and the adhered single businesses up until the point that the transmitted messages are organised in a completely comprehensible communication strategy this aspect is even more crucial in the light of the differentiation of distribution channels which over the past few years have multiplied opening the world of large-scale retail and the restaurant industry to single agencies this evolution leads to a parallel differentiation of target clients and therefore to the necessity to also differentiate promotional messages operators are however asked for a communication strategy that is capable of articulating messages in a way that adapts them to the different contexts in which they are communicated in short a general communication plan for dos is needed one that is able to create marketing which knows how to place the products in different channels in a way which valorises and distinguishes them a plan which over time can support consortia businesses and other stakeholders with suitable training in promotion management and specific communication for both businesses and terroir-food name in our opinion the promotion of a distinctive sector such as that of do productions is not a mere question of technical ability that can be resolved by delegating to communication agencies because in order to successfully understand acknowledge and transmit the value of productions and the elements which make them what they are there is a need for ad hoc marketing ­ both experiential and innovative to actually be effective this new way of promoting should be built from an in-depth knowledge of the sector of its distinctiveness its weak and strong points its criticalities and potential although at the same time it would be pretentious to ask the single consortium or even more so the single business to individually create in an isolated way conditions for realising a communication strategy as articulate as this these reasons are also at the base of the fellowship that qualivita has for years established with the university of rome la sapienza which carried out this research the objective of the qualivita foundation is to assemble the best experiences and offer them to the institutions and operators in the supply chain for do productions in a way that they can create marketing strategies that are worthy of the products that they promote and which fully transmit their value 10

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the communication of dos a battle with many allies by alberto mattiacci head of scientific observatory a complicated framework first snapshot a desk the head of marketing juggling his work between the computer papers telephone calls and continuous meetings the air is that of someone who has lots of problems to resolve those who work in marketing are well aware of the two typical categorical imperatives of the job i to conquest every day the consumer s choice and to keep their motivations alive over time ii to fight the indifference of people let s start with the latter indifference as described by trecciani is among others the imperturbableness of the soul which when faced with things does not feel neither desire nor repulsion or else it is the condition and behaviour of those who don t demonstrate interest liking participation and similar1 for those who are even a little familiar with marketing these definitions will immediately give one the sense of the challenge in progress desire is the motivating spirit which moves the entire system of contemporary consumption interest is the foundation itself of functioning advertising models ­ remember the celebrated aida attention interest desire action participation is ever-increasingly an ingredient in the formula of long-term relations with the market in short for the marketer indifference is most definitely an opponent to bring down the problem is that we live in a time where people s indifference towards commercial stimuli is heightened maybe now more than ever the reasons in our opinion are substantially two i the proliferation of the offer ii fragmentation proliferation is an evident phenomenon that is well known by the world of quality certified food productions like every year the qualivita observatory certifies that in our country all food names are proliferated from the professor of economics and business management director of citta university of rome la sapienza 1 source modern dictionary of the italian language treccani 2010 11

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first-ever few dozen to the more than two hundred today intuitively when faced with this amount of proliferation the perceptive and cognitive processes of consumers find themselves in difficulty in other words there are too many because the average consumer can be aware of their existence and in some cases of the main characteristics in a non-superficial way indifference is the defensive action to all of this the quantitative expansion of the offer specifically the food offer is essentially due to the combined composition of globalisation and technology the first breaking down the barriers of the circulation of people and markets has given the green light to the diffusion of non-autochthonous food-styles and trade of the relative products for example couscous the second by improving productive processes and distributive logistic the capacity of the offer for the entire productive-distribution system has increased parallel to this the habitus of people s food consumption have structurally changed with an increase in on-trade consumption for example the constant decrease in the time dedicated to the preparation of food and a reduction in portion sizes induced by health and aesthetic needs and so on they therefore fragment · market shares today the cake of consumption categories is divided between more plates products commensals players and tables eating places this phenomenon has segmented the market into i mainstream the area occupied by mass producers which will probably be increasingly dominated by private labels ii focalised the area occupied by food specialities · consumption units food consumption which was once a long time ago a social and domestic activity is definitively individualised personal and multi-location · product offer players increase the level of the value of their offer resorting in a big way to the differentiation of formats and variants above all where there is the lack of potency to create sovereign brands small businesses focus strongly on collective surrogates such as designations of origin · distribution supply chain both modern and traditional distribution constantly review the formulas of their offer up-dating them according to the supply needs of a time-sensitive society which is ever more value-oriented innovative formulas and variety of the offer begin to emerge fragmenting the total demand into a myriad of segments that are increasingly disparate farmers markets such as coldiretti 0km outlets organic e-commerce e.g zolle in rome are only some examples of this trend 12

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as a direct consequence of fragmentation the linearity of the chosen path for the supply of any product category breaks today the purchasing choice can exercise in on or offline formulas among a countless number of enormous possibilities rendering the panorama even more bauman-style liquid this is the environment the mental space with which the marketer has to compete with today a space where indifference reigns as the brain s defensive response to its inability to cognitively manage so much variance proliferation and fragmentation create disorientation noise confusion and dismay extracting perception from all this ­ therefore rendering us indifferent ­ is the natural escape route that our limited minds spontaneously search for to conquest and maintain consumer choice is hard work just making quality products is no longer enough if indeed it ever was in some past era enough a liquid framework second snapshot she or rarely he who is responsible for family purchases who runs between shops passing along streets full of advertising talking on the telephone and listening to the radio taking a closer look that which characterises this image is movement our clients pass little time in the same place and when they do stop they are not concentrated on just one thing even when the body is still their attention moves incessantly and continuously between more than one object subject area or device alessandro baricco ­a writer who may or may not be liked as such but to whom we must attribute the capacity of knowing how to think in the present and express his thoughts well ­ described multitasking as being the most spectacular surfing invented by the new generation he provides us with an image of this generation which do their homework while chatting on the computer listening to their ipod sending sms googling all at the same time although this could easily be seen as a neurosis baricco describes it as being a new idea of experience a new localisation of sense a new way of perceiving and even goes as far as saying that it is a new civilisation2 our clients are constantly multitasking not only in the sense described by barricco but also in their use of many different devices over a short space of time every day in every moment of every day this liquidness this continuous and incessant movement encouraged and supported by the technological devices that we carry with us at all times like post-modern amulets is for businesses which need to use commercial communication a real problem how do you keep in contact how can you be sure that the message was received and that you are sending it in the right way how to hit the target?3 2 ref baricco a 2006 i barbari espresso editorial group rome pg 128-129 3 personally we detest this xx century language of military and war-like terms to describe the economy we use this expression unwillingly to help the reader understand better 13

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individual quotidianity makes the relationship between space and time increasingly more dynamic and changeable the fundamental aspects are shown in figure 1 figure 1 liquid quotidianity night time early morning early evening mid morning late afternoon early afternoon the traditional use of media for sending promo-advertising to the target audience puts each communication tool within that point of interception between the place where the single individual puts information and time sub-divided into time slots television for example is a domestic channel protagonist of prime time our clients that is all of us live immersed in a space where commercial stimulus comes from tools which are increasingly less nondigital for example traditional fixed or mobile posters and more digital ­ therefore connectable between themselves ­ such as smartphones and tablets televisions and radios this scenario is now a given fact not to be modified by anyone and on the contrary susceptible only to increasing over time 14

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the life cycle of communication productive organisations are obliged to communicate in fact commercial communication creates awareness ­ which is the only way to overcome the barrier of indifference and appeal ­ that is desire and motivation to buy however communication is an activity which needs conspicuous resources and requires ­ or better imposes that there is continuity in the investment investment in communication therefore has a temporal dimension it spreads across a planning line where we can only be sure of where it begins and not when it will end that is if it ever does its principal tool not by chance is the media plan or rather the document which plans the use of various channels over time complying in the best possible way with communication objectives given a certain amount of available resources today s situation on the basis of what has been described and on the current digital revolution in progress obliges those who invest in commercial communication to change their perspective figure 2 expanding the sphere covered by the media plan figure 2 how to lengthen the life of an investment in communication investment in communication and marketing client time line key the base-line constitutes the fixed quote of the annual investment in communication destined for maintaining ordinary communication activity public relations visual identity etc the investment in traditional branding green dashed line tends to gradually decrease as the brand itself consolidates on the reference market trend over time the curve takes on a flat trend the investment in environment blue dotted line works in the opposite way reflecting the gradual expansion of the distribution coverage over time and the consequent need to increase the allocation necessary to govern sales points as communicative spaces trend over time the curve decreases before taking on a flat trend relative only to maintenance the investment in engagement purple dashed line grows with the increase in clients and consequently with the necessary commitment needed to keep them faithful and susceptible to further economic valorisation 15

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