Ciao. We are here today in a very beautiful place, Attila & Co. Communication Agency. Together with me there is Andreina Longhi, founder and CEO of this amazing agency. Attila has been behind the success of many luxury brands. They organize events. It is countless, the number of fashion shows you did. They take care of advertising, celebrity management, and in recent years, as well the creation of a retail experience. Their headquarters is here in Milano, but Attila & Co. also has offices in Beijing, in Shanghai, a partner in New York, and an international network in Europe. So, Andreina, is therefore the best person to comment about the trends in the way luxury goods communicate. Let's start from the 2007 crisis. How has this financial crisis affected the way fashion companies communicate in your view? So, hello to everybody. It's a tough question, this one, because we start from a negative point of our business. It has been a very tough moment, because fashion was not used to have problems. Fashion companies were used to be successful, earn money, and go for world. And this was a moment of stop. A moment where we had to think what to do, and how to go on without business. So the first reaction was, we stop everything. Because we have no more money, we don't earn the money as before. We stop. So advertising going down, and magazine were so slim that was a real, really sad to see them. Yeah. And we were struggling in how to go on and forward with our project. But you know at the end we are happy people. We don't like sad moments. So, we found a way to communicate in any case. Also because no communication with business. So, thanks, thanks for us And so we were obliged to find another way to communicate with our clients. First of all, we thought, let's go out of our traditional target. Let's involve the consumers. Because at the end, the, the one who was suffering the most was the consumer. How can we please them? What can we do to support the sales to our consumers? Retail was the answer. We had to for a long time only motor brands, stores. Especially in Italy. Yes, I’m talking about Italy first, I'm sorry. And then with, our department stores were not so interesting. Our department store were just the place for average brands. This crisis has helped a lot, because in the market where there're so many little family stores. Department stores were moment where you had a sort of security of payments, and also of sales. Department stores started to improve. We have two major ones, Queen and and both improved the quality of brands. Windows became the most important point in communication. You pass by, you see the product, you enter, and you buy. So, very very important tool for everybody. And this is why all our fashion brands started to take care of windows. Before it was just only. I always talk about detail here. it was only about product, now it's about the story. So if you go to Prada, if you go to Gucci stores sometimes the videos in the windows present the fashion shows. It's becoming a moment of communication. This is an advantage of crises. You use what you already have and you find a way to use in the best way. The second point is events. Suddenly we didn't want to have a project target anymore. We wanted to communicate with our own target, so the end events are very specific. Of course we reach a smaller number of people, but, they’re our people. Again, never forget the most powerful tool ever in fashion: Fashion shows. You have for 20 minutes all of your target, Media, buyers, just for you. They're looking at you, at your brand, and they enter into your brand. It's an emotional moment for you, and for them. Also the coverage of fashion shows is huge. Even a tiny newspaper in Arkansas will have a picture of a fashion fashion show. Why? Because it's a beautiful model, it's a beautiful outfit, it's glamor, they don't have so many opportunities to do it, so they profit off of it. I’ve always said… I don't know if it's true, but you could check, that only the election of the pope has the same coverage as a fashion show. Wow. Which is not too bad in the end. So, we have windows, we have events, and in between we have fashion shows, but also we have store events: In-store events. So moments where with an idea, with a concept, you invite your clients, it's no more just drinking, but it's also sharing experiences, and also explaining to them what your product is. Making them experience it. And the last point, which is for me the most important one is that nowadays, every action we do has to be focused on the commercial side. There was a very nice interview with Mrs. Miuccia Prada in Vanity Fair, saying commercial is not a bad word. I loved her so much when she said that because it means that also for fashion and luxury products, we have to think that we have to sell them. Okay, the image is very important. Every detail is so important that you could die for it. But in the end if your event does not improve sales, does not have a sort of redemption, why are you doing it? So we could say that you have to sell the dream, but you also have to sell the product. Yes. That you have to communicate to the VIP, but also you have to include the final customer. Yes, yes. Andreina, before you referred to the crisis of traditional printed magazines. In your view, will they survive, or will the digital take over everything? No, you cannot be so decisive on no more print. It’s not black and white, There is also gray. Yes, thank God. So print is always very important, because, you know, the touch, the smell. You see if it is a nice magazine, you keep it. It's another way, It's the slow way of doing it. Then there the fast way, which is a digital and digital's increasing everyday. But now, print magazines also have the digital version too. But also digital magazines like cite.com also have print magazines. Or Business of Fashion they're doing the print magazine. So, it's in a change of experiences between them and one will be higher, will be lower, butthe balance will still be there. It the end I don't believe that the print magazine will disappear. I strongly believe that all the digital media would increase, improve. Sometimes I wonder how did I do it before without digital? It's so important. I have the impression that the world is in my hands. I push my team to go on web to explore it as much as possible, to surf and understand it, and learn and find information. Even me, I spend at least three hours a day on it, looking around and going from one link to another. It's very important. You have to be curious. If you want to be successful in this business you have to be very curious and know as much as you can, and the web is the best way to do it. I definitely agree. It's not something that is going to be a substitution, but it's going to give us many more opportunities to learn. Absolutely yes. Now speaking about learning, we are now living in a global world, so a challenge for a brand is to maintain a it’s brand consistency, but at the same time, adapt to different countries and cultures. You have a long time expertise with one of the most important but also challenging markets, China. Yes. Can communication be local? If so, how? Let's start from the strategy. I think that this strategy has to be absolutely global, because the brand cannot be different from one market to another, but the brand has to pay attention to the consumer. Sometimes the cultural difference is so deep that the brand has to adapt to it. My job as a communicator, as a marketing person, is to be a sort of guardian of the brand. When I'm taking the brand to China, since I know that the Chinese tend to “Chinese-ize” everything they touch, my job is to be able to take care of the Brand DNA and keep it safe. In addition to this, I have to pay a lot of attention that the consumer understands what they’re saying. I need a translation, the brand needs to be translated very carefully, but it has to be translated into the market. How can it be possible not to be lost in translation? Yeah, you're not lost in the moment when you know who you are. So, that's why it's so important that you exactly know your DNA and you have a strategy. When we discuss about communication, it can be advertising, PR, or events, everything has to be under the same umbrella of strategy. Nowadays, also the press office must have a strategy. When we present the collection to the media, we choose the part of the collection that we want the media to see. We don't present, like in the past, a whole collection. Because we somehow have to them towards what we need. This is what we do; maybe when we’re in Europe, we choose a part of the collection which is in a certain style; when we go to Asia, maybe we choose an other part of it. We know the needs of the clients, and we have Chinese partners to support us. When I’m doing something for China, I ask my Chinese people herein the agency, “Tell me, is it right?” “Am I offending somebody?” “Is it fine that I do it like this?” I think that a brand is well accepted when the brands understand the market. And also the brand is so, along with the word humble, to adapt itself to the market. In this case you see a lot of success. When the the brand arrives to the market and says, “This is me.” “You have to accept me like I am.” It’s little bit more difficult. You don't only teach them lessons, You have to learn first, in order to adapt. Absolutely. That's what I think. Now, one million dollar question, what is next? What is next? Next is hard work, because we were used to have easy success, but not now. Competition gets harder and harder. It's difficult to arrive to new markets. You have to prepare them. You have to invest. We have some advantages. The world is for us. Before we had Europe and America, Now we have Asia growing. We have Southeast Asia, we have Indonesia, we have Philippines. We have so many new markets growing. Africa seems to be another important market. So, the world is on, is on our hands, but it's our work because us, as we are the oldest ones as in Europeans, we have to educate the other markets. So when we approach them, we have to go there and as I said, listen, and then, teach, and then maybe earn money. So it's a longer, in my opinion, longer. A vision, you need. Yes, you need a vision. You need to be open minded. To accept other opinions. To accept to be maybe not so successful in the beginning. I don't tell you about my store in China but when I went there 11 years ago, it was not easy at all. I did mistakes. I paid for it. It was learning by doing. And so, but, next it's a lot of opportunity, huge opportunity. So the moment that your partners, your clients understand that you are honest, that they can believe in what you do, and you want to work for them, and to support them, help them. They will open the doors, and it will be fantastic because they were just so big. There's so much you can do. And if you're curious, as I said before, you can do it. The recipe to success is vision and resilience. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you Andreina. My pleasure. It was very inspiring. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
