Acqua Panna yes, Alfa Romeo no: how to use Italianness

What you can use

When you build your brand's code, you can draw on two kinds of heritage. The historical kind, by adding the company's founding date if there is a real history behind it: Audemars Piguet puts “since 1875” in its payoff. And the geographical kind, by using Italy's geographical brands.

Be careful, though: not every place is a brand. The ones you can use can be counted on one hand. Italy. Tuscany and Sicily, which are brands to Americans: if you are based in one of those two regions you can use Tuscany or Sicily. Beyond those two, the other regions are not brands. Then the cities: Milan, Venice, Rome and Naples, in Italian or in English. These cities are brands.

I have given both the English and the Italian because Al Ries advised me to use Italian, since it sounds good. In your case, judge for yourself.

The $10 bottle

In the United States the perfect example of an Italian brand that plays on both kinds of heritage is Acqua Panna. The 75 cl bottle sells for $10. They used everything they could to sell water at that price.

Look at the label from top to bottom. There is a double historical heritage: the date, 1564, and a bit of Latin that nobody in America understands but that sounds good. At the bottom, the Tuscan lily, ringed by the words “Born in the source of Tuscany”, even though Nestlé probably bottles it in New Jersey. Then the brand, Acqua Panna, in Italian, and the double geographical heritage “Toscana – Italia”, also left untranslated. Finally the payoff, in English: “Natural spring water”.

To recap: double historical heritage, a visual, the brand in Italian, double geographical heritage in Italian, a translated payoff. This is how it's done.

Using Italianness takes a little intelligence. Toscana, Italia or Milano are easy to understand. “La meccanica delle emozioni” stays incomprehensible.

The Los Angeles mural

Do as Acqua Panna does, not as Alfa Romeo does: in the United States Alfa uses its Italian payoff, “La meccanica delle emozioni”, untranslated. Besides not meaning much even in Italian, Americans don't understand it. In Los Angeles they painted a huge Alfa mural with the slogan in Italian. You also find it in Italian at trade fairs abroad and on the international websites.

Think of the newspaper ads with the Stelvio and the Giulia: what does an American make of them? With Acqua Panna they read “Toscana – Italia”, gather that there is some odd Latin, understand the number (the founding year) and then the payoff in English. “La meccanica delle emozioni” cannot be understood.

My payoff, “kitchens and bathrooms direct from Milan”, is in English all over the world. It is the Italians who read the English, and if they don't understand it, then even though they are my fellow countrymen, they are not target customers.

A lost suitcase and a sales assistant in San Francisco

I have a story from one of my first trips to the United States, about ten years ago. Lufthansa lost my suitcase while I was in California on my way to a client in San Francisco. I went to buy clothes at J.Crew, an American chain at the upper end of the mid-market, very youthful. I was used to Italian sales assistants: imagine my surprise at how the American one treated me. She treated me as if I were her best friend, waited for me outside the fitting rooms, gave me style advice, handed me the sizes.

It made me wonder whether we are the ones getting it wrong in Italy, where you very often buy in spite of the sales staff, and whether the American method is better. That way of selling transfers to luxury, and the United States has no shortage of luxury brands: Apple, or Tesla, which makes electric cars at a premium price.

The perfect model: bringing the two worlds together

On one side we have the utmost attention to the product, with the founder or owner working in the company. The brand is the company itself: this is the heritage typical of the European style. On the other side we have marketing built on narrative, testimonials, customer interviews and close attention to the customer experience: this is the storytelling typical of the American style.

Both the American and the European styles work. The ideal is to merge the two models, as we try to do: use both heritage and storytelling, a quality product, testimonials and the customer experience. This is the perfect model if you want to build a luxury brand.

And if you sell abroad

If you want to expand into foreign markets, at first you can limit yourself to producing content in Italian and English. I'd also advise having French and German, though, because they are very wealthy markets and their customers like Italian products. But not only Italian, or you are not international. And every language must have everything: the copy, the pages, the video captions, the blog articles, the emails. That is months, if not years, of work. It is the foundation for building a brand that sells abroad.

Written in 2021 for my book Direct from Milano: the facts and figures are those of the time.