Interview with Carlo Urbinati: ‘Always be sure to lead the process’

MARKETERs MakeIT! – Our interview with Carlo Urbinati, President of Foscarini

A company without a factory that makes the product its core business and does everything it can to make the most of it. How? The strategy is simple: by communicating to the world where, how and by whom it is made, enhancing the company’s internal and external resources. At MARKETERs MakeIT in Italy we talked about this with Carlo Urbinati, President of Foscarini, who told us about the experience of a company that daily passes on the mastery of Italian know-how.

D. Foscarini is one of the many Italian companies appreciated worldwide for the beauty and quality of its products. Behind this success there is of course a marketing strategy and image work to communicate the qualities of the brand also abroad. What has been your method?

R. Our company is very product-centric, so our task is to ensure that it expresses its strengths in the best possible way. We always try to offer a global reading of our products, with a slant geared towards supporting sales and explaining their infinite potential. In addition to traditional tools, we have integrated a strong presence on digital channels, presenting ourselves as a brand capable of creating original and unconventional content. The objective of our communication in any case is always to transfer the value, if not the prestige, of having something that is made by hand, every day.

D. In communicating your mission and business ethics, how important is the contribution that human capital can make to your ideas and what role does the emotional component play in your storytelling?

R. Our human capital is made up of both those who create our products and those who support us from the outside, such as the designer Rodolfo Dordoni. We have made videos that tell the daily work of artisans, presenting them around the world, and this naturally sent out an important message: “We are taking your work around the world, let’s play together!”. We felt it was right and proper to give value to the end product by highlighting who produces it and how they do it, regardless of the fact that this put us in the position of saying ‘they are the ones who physically produce it, not us’.

D. In your work, tradition and innovation strike a surprising balance. In your case, which aspects of tradition are you most attached to and which technologies do you use to preserve them without sacrificing the innovative aspect?

R. I believe that you have to be sure that you are leading the process. The important thing is not to be carried away by technology, which is simply a means to an end already established. If the technological capability somehow manages to preserve tradition, then so be it. Technology is available to everyone, it is up to us to figure out how to put it at the service of our goals.

D. How do you find it useful to divide investment percentages between digital and paper?

R. Everything that is promotion and communication in the broadest sense is digital. Then of course we continue to print many ‘trees’ of catalogues, because they continue to be in demand and necessary. We like (quality) printed paper: just consider “Inventario”, an editorial product of ours that won the Compasso d’Oro not only for its editorial design, but also for its graphic design and print quality.

D. How much time do you spend on average on training and developing your company’s internal human capital?

R. We do training, if you like, even on people who are not from the company, as in the case of our craftsmen. With them, for example, we often organise and share company moments in which they themselves have played an important role: I would consider these, too, to be training opportunities. Inwardly, I believe that each of us must be well aware of where we are operating and what results are being achieved, and therefore must be able to ‘know’. This can of course only be possible through targeted interventions, which we constantly organise in order to know ourselves in relation to the changing landscape in which we operate every day.