Perception of the “Made in Italy” : A First Analysis of Social Intelligence

Europe

Made in Italy

2021 – Historically, Italy has enjoyed a strong evocative capacity, creativity and product excellence summarised in the “Made in Italy” expression. But how is the “Made in Italy” perceived by the world network, today? In order to strengthen its competitiveness and set up an effective future strategy, we analysed the perception of the “Made in Italy” on the Web for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in collaboration with Link Campus. What does the “Made in Italy” brand consist of? How is it talked about and who is doing the talking in the world? To define the investigation coordinates, we took a different point of view from the traditional approach, tuning the analysis methodology on an unstructured listening mode regarding what users spontaneously express and share online.

The methodological challenge was to reduce the huge amount of detected content to a set of analysis data which could be managed in terms of volume, and to identify significant clusters of content within it. The goal was to identify early trends in conversations and perceptions related to our country, which could then be used to open constructive debate and set up an effective future strategy, able to attract investment capital, talent and tourism.

The analysis strongly shows the absence of any Nation Branding coordinated action. While many countries abroad create new structures and dedicated tools, in Italy we have not yet created any global and integrated promotion strategies. The analysis of the conversations reflects an objective fragmentation and shows weakness of the institutional actors and of the actions undertaken to promote Italy as a national brand, obscured by the activism of private actors, celebrities from the entertainment and sports sectors and single destinations, such as the cities of art. The volumes of content are significant, but the messages that they spread and the perception of Italy that they feed into the world network are far from the values identified by the Directorate General for Cultural and Economic Promotion and Innovation of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The analysis, therefore, confirms the urgency of defining a long-term strategy that clearly guides all the actors involved in the promotion of the “Made in Italy”, directing them towards a common goal of positioning the country in the perception of the public abroad. Through the levers of storytelling and networking, Italy could exercise more firmly an anything but secondary form of soft power, thus exploiting the potential of the network and enhancing local characteristics.