Marketing Traditional & Digital PDF

At least, the first module---the one that you shared with me yesterday---I did not insert today. I asked the class coordinator not to insert the presentation because I want you to read it with me, to go through it with me. There are a few concepts that I would like to share with you before you go th...

At least, the first module---the one that you shared with me yesterday---I did not insert today. I asked the class coordinator not to insert the presentation because I want you to read it with me, to go through it with me. There are a few concepts that I would like to share with you before you go through a written document. Okay, we\'re ready to rock and roll. 62 people. Uh, okay, you saw it but could not download it. I will make sure the class coordinator gets in touch with all of you and correctly uploads it. Probably there was some kind of, how to say, a deadline---you can download it up to, let\'s say, six o\'clock or something like this. Okay, I will highlight this issue to the class coordinator. There, I suppose, is not number nine but a parenthesis, and so you were smiling. Okay, let us start. Well, we\'re 61; shall we wait for the other 10, or just one more minute and then we\'ll start? Okay. Stop. No questions so far? Everything was quite clear yesterday, as far as I understand. It is not a lot of methodology; it\'s a lot of examples, a lot of real-life things. Welcome to this module, and we are ready to rock and roll again. The rest of the people will jump on the module in due course. So, yesterday, we discussed very important topics. Number one: features and limits of, let\'s say, classical or traditional marketing. We also highlighted the challenges, the limits, but also the big set of opportunities generated by digital marketing. The third way is to implement, launch, and use an integrated marketing strategy because the combination of both---the integration of both--- will ensure that you are competitive in the marketing arena. That is why we will be focusing tonight on, let\'s say, the main strategies which can be implemented. We at Rome Business School identified the 10 main and most important marketing strategies, which are, of course, a blended solution generated by both traditional and digital methods, and of course, integrated ones. The Rome Business School research---you know that we also have a research department---generated, and I contributed to this with some documentation and real experiences in the field. We were able to define, to determine, that 10 strategies are, let\'s say, the most important to be implemented and therefore the most important to be known by managers or students attending a master\'s course who are willing and interested in dealing with those, in using those, in implementing those, but even and most importantly, in mastering those. You not only have to know them but you have to be able to fully generate these marketing strategies as soon as you are the owner of your own company, an employee of a company, a manager of an operational department or finance department---it does not matter. You have to know them and eventually, you have to master them. The first one---the most important---I wouldn\'t say the most important, but one of the, let\'s say, strategies which generate the best return on investment and the best response from people, for the reasons we mentioned yesterday---is to convey the value proposition to your customer. We are all customers, and we are all selfish. We don\'t buy things because we like to pull money out of our pockets. Well, some people do, but they are a minority. To do wild shopping for the pleasure of shopping, to me, is nonsense, and to marketing people, it is nonsense. But anyway, there are people who do that. We are talking about, let\'s say, the majority---the vast majority of people. People are not looking for your product simply because they like your brand and your image, etc. They mainly buy---I pull out money out of my wallet because I want to find a solution to my problems, needs, dreams, expectations---everything which is related to something that I feel is important and urgent. Who might argue that the guy who bought a Rolex doesn\'t have any problem? He does, probably, or he or she might have a lot of money, but they also have a need; they don\'t want to look at the time on their watch---they want to show off. They want to go like this and say, \"Hey, good evening, I\'m working with you, I\'m starting a negotiation, starting a professional relationship with you, and I want to show off.\" So that is also a need; that is also a solution; there is also a problem. Rolex responds to a need, and the need is: I want to show status, I want to eventually show off, I want to prove that I\'m a successful manager in this world. So, what is the secret here? Conveying the value proposition to the customer means the following: this is the price, and this is the value. What is price? Price is a number; it\'s a piece of paper that you glue onto the product---the product costs 179 euros. That is---you cannot argue on that because it is written on top of any product. Number. Price versus---or, let\'s say, versus something which is completely different person to person---the value of a product. If I ask all 67 attending students---Antonio, etc.---what is the value of a specific product, you would answer in 69 or 70 different ways because the value of a product is completely different, and it\'s based on the fact that the more number of problems, dreams, expectations I feel I fulfill with the product, the more the product is valuable. Another question: if price is here---and don\'t answer, please; you are too many---if price is here and value is here, would you buy that product? Absolutely no way. If the other way takes place---price is here, and value is much higher than price---would you buy it? Of course, you would buy it. It\'s a bargain; it\'s a big bargain, and you would eventually go and purchase it. So value is something that differs from person to person; price is a fact---it\'s a number. You have to convey the value proposition to customers, and there is not only theory. The value proposition can be written, can be sent in a message, can be visualized, can be emotionally evocative, and can generate a big set of involvement, but the value proposition must be there. And I\'m giving you an example---and I promise it\'s the last example that I give you based on airline transportation, but it\'s too beautiful. It\'s not because I love Alitalia because I love Made in Italy---I\'m Italian and all that fuss---it\'s because it is a success story which was generated by the proper value proposition. A few years ago, a very famous company in Italy in a specific market, the name is Perugina used to sell the product Baci Perugina, small chocolates, very well done, very well created, with a piece of paper inside with a love message, both in Italian and in English, but very famous. And they did research in Italy; they wanted to go international. They did research in Italy and found out that a huge number of Japanese people, Korean people, and Chinese people would love to have that product not only when they were traveling to Italy and enjoying Italy but also were requesting the product in their own home markets. It was a relatively small company; the factory was in Perugia. They understood that it was a big internationalization opportunity, but they didn\'t have money to invest in big commercials and big television advertisements and having franchises or stores in China and Japan, etc. So they decided to use a tool---a communication tool---which would make communication that they were about to land in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya with small little tiny corner stores in bigger sweet and chocolate stores. So they decided to invent something. They got in touch with another company---that company\'s name is Alitalia---which was flying to Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo, Osaka, etc., and which had the major reason---what was the reason why? Why should I buy from Alitalia? Why should I fly with Alitalia? Because they carry around the Made in Italy idea. So they decided to paint an aircraft blue; they painted a lot of stars, and they wrote on top \"Baci from Italy. Baci from Alitalia\" But what was the advantage for Perugina? They could impress the world as soon as this aircraft would land in any, not only Asian but long-haul destination such as New York, Los Angeles. It was almost 1998 no internet then; it was basic community digital communication and marketing strategy to be applied, etc. So they communicated \"Kisses from Italy,\" \"Baci from Alitalia,\" and they would give free sets of chocolates during the flight. Alitalia accepted to paint the aircraft; they got one million euros; it was two billion of the old Italian lira. One million, they painted the aircraft. The aircraft would fly all day long between Rome and Beijing and Shanghai, etc., and would go back and forth during the week. A lot of people saw this advertisement; a lot of people went to the airport not to take a flight but to take pictures of this beautiful aircraft. So, this is a perfect example of integrated marketing, where the value proposition is not chocolate, is not transportation, but the value is the Made in Italy atmosphere. Both of them have a common trait. The common trait is: we take around the beautiful Made in Italy, the romantic message into a very beautiful sweet chocolate and the transportation. Are you getting the message regarding the value proposition? That would be more than enough, so I can go ahead. Okay, this is exactly what conveying the value proposition means. You focus on your value proposition and you duly and effectively communicate it in the market. And this is an example. It took place in 1998. The creator of this was a man in Alitalia, he was originally from Catania. After this, a lot of other carriers\' aircraft were painted. You can find over the internet, you can find Star Wars on some Japanese airline companies, Tintin, which is the Belgian comic character, featured on Sabena flights, and Australia promoted the Australian destination with a lot of typical animals of Australia, such as kangaroos and kiwi, etc., etc. And also Walt Disney and Star Wars did it. It started as a creative genius dream, and then it became something systematically applicable by companies. So, there was the first idea, the first digital and traditional marketing or integrated marketing. You have to, through marketing, convey the value proposition. The second one is, after you have done your homework---after you know who you are, how you work, or even before that, and I will show you---you must define your ICP, and that is the Ideal Customer Profile. How many ideal customer profiles does Apple have? Hundreds of them. How many companies have only one ICP? Nobody. By focusing on your ICP, you have to focus not only---as I\'m showing you here on Tommy Technology, which of course does not exist---but you have to understand if your typical buyer persona or ideal customer profile is young or old, educated or not, culturally or digitally literate or not, male, young, older, working, unemployed. You have to focus on whether your product can duly and effectively cover as many as possible. I will show you why. I don\'t want to sell you any Apple apparel, but I will show you what they have done, and they have done the best. ICP means you understand why---the reason why they must buy from you---and that is product-wise or company-wise, a good exercise, some homework that you have to do. On the other side, you have to focus---the perfect customer knows perfectly well who is their ICP. Rich women who buy jewelry and diamonds, men in their 40s who buy beautiful Swiss-made watches with logos, and then relatively old persons who can afford to buy, I don\'t know, 65 euros per bottle of Bulgari Blu Pour Homme perfume. They have as many ICPs as possible, and they know how to---not only they know how many they have but also how to best cover them. And you don\'t cover them simply by age, occupation, education, personality, status, etc., environment, if they are extrovert, introvert, sensitive, or intuitive, etc. You focus on Mr. Just-for-Freedom\'s motivations and Mr. Just-for-Freedom\'s frustrations. That is exactly what you must focus on. Is it clear why you have to do your homework? And your homework is to understand your ICP. And then immediately after, or immediately before---it depends very much if company-driven or customer-driven---you have to understand the reason why. The five Ws are or do represent an exercise that you have to run if you want to be competitive in the market. But if you know why they should buy from you, immediately after you have to know who is going to buy from you. And very often, people---and you know, most probably all of you know---that people don\'t buy because they want to pull out money; they buy because they want to solve a problem, what I mentioned to you before, but mainly because they are looking for pleasure, happiness, joy, and public recognition and family recognition. They buy things because they search for joy and happiness. They buy things because they want to escape from fear. You want to escape from fear, from frustration, so you buy medicine or you buy house alarms because you want to avoid the idea that someone can break into your home. How often does a person break into your home? Probably once in a lifetime, but you buy alarms, you buy insurance policies---I know people who buy insurance policies to protect themselves from lightning striking them when they\'re crossing the street. Probability is equal to one out of, I don\'t know how many millions, yet you have a lot of people who buy the insurance policy, Uber insurance policy, and alarms because they want to run away from fear or pain. You buy a beautiful dinner and beautiful clothes and watches and things because you are searching for public admiration, public recognition---you want to feel good and comfortable with yourself. So, the ICP is a profile that will allow you to understand the reason why they have to buy from you and the identity of each and every person willing to buy from you. Then, of course, you have millions of common ICPs because you have millions of young graduates and students who are willing to buy a Rome Business School master course, but that is exactly the idea behind. Are there any specific tools, surveys a brand can employ? Absolutely, yes. There are plenty. Google is one of them, but it\'s not the only one. If you have this clear---again, methodology; this is not theory; this is real business life---you want an example, and believe me, probably it\'s the best, or at least the last time that I give you the Apple example. I have to admit that Apple is one of the best in generating the positioning statement. Positioning statement is the result of the five Ws: who are you, what do you do, where, when, how, and why should I buy from you, and the ICP. There is a perfect statement: target audience---for those who thrive on individuality. Did I talk to you that out of 8 billion people we all want to feel like individuals? Well, Apple was one of the first to fully understand that yes, they can sell me 40 million pieces of iPhone, and I can still feel like an individual. There is my target audience. What does Apple do for the target audience? Brand promise, point of difference, unique selling proposition---for those who look for individuality, Apple creates products based on seeing the world differently. You remember one of the best advertising campaigns: \"Think Different.\" It\'s their motto; it has been their motto for almost 50 years. So you\'re an individual; you are interested in individuality. Apple creates products not based on technology, on performance, on 60 gigabytes of RAM memory, etc. They create products based on seeing the world differently. How do they do that? How do you benefit? By creating deep human connections. Reason why? To inspire their customers to think differently. That is why you buy Apple. Probably nobody has ever told you, but that is the reason why subconsciously you know that you buy something because you want to look and feel like you\'re different from anyone else, yet that computer is a piece of hardware, the smartwatch is a piece of technology, the iPhone is a normal iPhone or a smartphone with 25% of hardware which is exactly the same as this blody Xiaomi. And at the end of the day, you are looking for inspiration to think differently. There, Apple is a unique selling proposition---\"Think Different\"---even though I know that I\'m purchasing something that anyone else has because together, like me, all of them want to be different from the rest of 8 billion people. So, five Ws, ICP, positioning statements. Are you getting the point? I am ready to repeat it or to explain it better if it\'s not clear. But this is a concept of paramount importance. Marketing is not a discipline itself; it\'s a discipline useful to make you think about something like this and to apply coherent and consistent strategies to sell, market, and promote your product. If this is clear, I will go to point number four, okay? The best example would be Mercedes---it is not only meant and built for rich people who can afford the car; it\'s also generated for very young people who probably don\'t have all that money but who want to distinguish themselves with a luxury product, so they are willing to pay monthly installments in order to do that. I told you Mercedes is a status, but if you buy a Class A Mercedes, which is the basic product, the platform and the engine are exactly the same as the Renault Megane. As soon as you tell the ICP of Mercedes that the engine and platform are exactly the same---Renault Megane costs 19,000 euros, Mercedes Class A costs 32,000 euros---they say, \"Who cares? I want to go with my Mercedes. I want to buy Mercedes.\" So is there any rationality behind it? If you focus only on engine and platform and CO2 emission and car performance, you probably would buy a Renault Megane. At the end of the day, a lot of people are queueing in line to buy Mercedes, and that is what makes the difference. Positioning statement is of paramount importance. As you can see, they don\'t talk about computers, hardware, iPods, and iPhones and tablets, etc., etc. They talk about products based on seeing the world differently. They don\'t say, \"Here\'s my ICP\"; they say, \"For those who search for individuality, who thrive on individuality.\" How many people out of 8 billion? Probably 8 billion, probably 1 billion, probably 20 million---I don\'t know. But those are their ICPs---Ideal Customer Profiles. If that is clear, I will---and I will fly over because I\'ve been talking to you probably too much about this. Startups start with niche segments; you cannot pretend to be appealing to the entire planet. When startups start their business, they focus on a specific Ideal Customer Profile, and they focus on that. They generate that value; they start a relationship---a communication relationship---with that specific customer segment, and they develop their business model. Google and Apple and Mercedes and, I don\'t know, Delta Airlines and Ferragamo---they can afford to have young ladies, old ladies, rich and poor ladies---they can spread as much as possible their ICP up to what Apple has done. Apple has extended the ICP to people who look for individuality. How many are there? Turkish, Swedish, Italian, South African, American---a lot of people thrive for individuality, a lot of people love to think differently or love to be perceived as they think differently. So they have spread as much as possible. Small companies must focus on building the ICP, generating a coverage of that segment, and then expand the ICP and the reason why to other potential segments of customers. Content marketing---I gave you plenty of information for this. Content marketing means you generate marketing campaigns; you focus on marketing content; you give people education, information, documents, blogs---everything which will generate a consultancy rather than a selling point. Content marketing is of paramount importance because nowadays you can get four or five million email accounts from people from all over the world, and you can throw a stone in the lake and get no result. If out of those four or five million email accounts you are able to generate a specific tailor-made or as much as possible tailor-made, humanized communication, you win over competitors. If you write to me, \"Name, family name, please be aware that Ferrari is producing a beautiful car,\" what do you do? You throw it in the garbage. That is one of the few million emails we receive on a daily or weekly basis. But if they write to you, \"Dear Maurizio di Dominico, we noticed that last week you surfed over our website, you purchased some product. Shall we give you further information about the product? Shall we give you a discount for another product that you want to buy? Do you need additional information? Do you want to attend a webinar out of which you will get better information with relation to our product or service or anything?\" Well, you feel a little bit more like a person. Content marketing is absolutely that. If you pay attention to it, there\'s a lot of competition there. I open up an email account and I receive---I open it up; I have six or seven email accounts like any of you, probably, because I have professional business. I receive an email via the company; I receive thousands on Eve Yoga startup, and I receive a lot of other emails. I\'m a member of an association of professors, and I have an email account. Every time I open up an email account, I have hundreds of emails that might not even look like spam, but as a matter of fact, they are spam. So I am bombarded with a lot of information. Your content must be relevant, appealing---again, somehow sexy---not in the sexual way, but sexy must be interesting. I received a few months ago a strange email from---I noticed after---from a watch producer. It\'s a niche segment startup, Italian and Swiss watch producer. And the main line was: \"When was the last time you really felt excited for something new?\" And I thought about it and said, \"Well, to be honest, a long time ago. Let\'s see what this guy has to propose to me.\" The watch was handmade, Swiss mechanism, Italian design, very special and specific. I didn\'t buy it, but at least it generated---it did generate interest in me because he said, \"When was the last time you really felt interested in something? Nowadays, try to be honest, try to reflect upon it---we are almost interested in nothing because we are bombarded with too much information.\" So content marketing has got to be relevant, consistent, coherent, high quality, appealing, and you must be somehow provocative. And I will show you how some companies have been provocative in the market. When I ask---I cannot do this; I cannot stimulate you when you\'re online---but when I have an on-campus class, I try to focus to have a confrontation with students, and I say, \"How many different platforms do we have on the internet? How many social media?\" We have plenty, and all of them exist because they deliver some specific added value. Facebook started as a meeting point between friends who hadn\'t met for the last four years---they finally would meet; it was the book of faces. What is Facebook now? It\'s everything. It\'s a marketplace. You want to look for a job---you go on Facebook. You are looking for advice from a lawyer---you go on Facebook. It has become the supermarket of everything. I don\'t like it; you will not find me there. It\'s too generic; it has become too generalist. You want to sell things---you go to Vinted. You want to go to auctions---you go to eBay. You want to meet professionals like you---you go on LinkedIn. You want to see beautiful pictures and you want to upload beautiful pictures---you go on Pinterest. You want to follow factors, etc.---you go on X, which used to be Twitter; it was much better off. Of course, it is important that the content is shareable. Absolutely, yes, Jasper. It must be shareable. That is of paramount importance because, how to say, shareability of knowledge is of paramount importance nowadays. I\'m not supposed to receive or to pay attention to super-secret offers---to say, they try to stimulate curiosity also with---you get into a closed number; the technical name is CUG, Closed User Group. They ask you very often to land into a microsite; you can enjoy limited edition products, etc. I tend to skip those because, as a matter of fact, they are not so interesting. But again, information must be shareable, and I agree with Dimitrios---the challenge is to separate data, but we\'ll be talking about this because we\'ve got so much data that we are not in a position to prioritize them. Let me go there; I will show you. So, you want to grow your business---use content marketing and use or take maximum advantage of each and every platform. In this page, I listed only main examples, but they are not only those examples. So content marketing is of paramount importance. Another strategy which is integrated is what I showed you---what I gave you the advice on yesterday. My son, 14 years old, bought a smartwatch. I said to him, \"Let\'s take a look at the instruction manual; let\'s print the QR code and get the digital version,\" and he said, \"Dad, you\'re a real boomer. Forget about it. I will go on YouTube; I will get a six-minute educational video officially from the company; I will get all the information, and in six minutes, I will master all the functions of this smartwatch,\" and he did it. So even though I was not expecting him to read a paper manual---you remember those big pieces of paper in Chinese, Hindi, English, Italian, German, Swedish, etc.? That has not existed for 25 years, let\'s say. Then you have a digital instruction booklet. Nowadays, people get information, get education, get training on YouTube. So YouTube is not only educational for my son, but it\'s also a source of evocative advertisement. They present movies, they present theatre pieces, and they use YouTube for everything. Why that? Because, as we mentioned, we don\'t read emails apart from the first three lines. You want to make a special offer, and you explain to me why in five lines that offer is super beautiful, and then you write at the bottom of the page---I don\'t read that, even though you\'ve written it in capital letters---you write to me \"75% discount---get this absolute bargain,\" and then you write down the explanation why, and then at the very bottom, you list all the rules and regulations that will make me have access to that specific offer---that is the way every single company does business nowadays. So, I didn\'t get COVID. But anyway, you are far away from me, so you will not get involved with COVID, but I don\'t have it. It\'s just that I\'ve learned I\'m allergic to this kind of strange weather in Italy. So, create more video content. It\'s of paramount importance that you use video content as an integrated and blended marketing strategy. Use evocative communication. Use traditional marketing campaigns---just do it. Think different, don\'t crack under pressure, but use all digital communication tools to make it evocative. Have you seen the new Ford Bronco advertisement worldwide? They don\'t even show you the car. They show you four beautiful people: husband, wife, and two children. All of them look beautiful. They are smiling like they won six million dollars five minutes before. They are driving the car, showing the inner part, and then they focus on a sunset on a California highway very close to the Pacific Ocean. What is the relationship with the car? The car is a tool, an instrument to enjoy the beautiful part of life. How do you do that? There is no wording that can describe it. You use traditional communication, and that means video or video production broadcasted on YouTube. Exactly what I\'m referring to when I say create more video content. I gave you three videos here. We don\'t have time, unfortunately, to show them, but they are very evocative. One of them is a 3D video generated by Nike in downtown Tokyo. Please erase your curiosity because, as you can see, this is slide number 12, and I have to reach slide number 67. You will thank me at the end of the evening because no slide is boring. This is auto-marketing; please forgive me. Optimize content for search engines and voice. Today, SEO is a prerequisite; it\'s not just mandatory---it\'s absolutely necessary. Let me give you an example. You know what SEO is: search engine optimization. And again, I ask you a question: how many of you, when you Google \"Hotel dei Congressi,\" want to go to that specific hotel? Easy. You Google it. You go on Yahoo, you go on Safari, you go on Microsoft---I don\'t even remember the name of Microsoft\'s search engine. Very easy. But if you\'re looking for a hotel for families---comfortable and cozy during the weekend, with a swimming pool and a beautiful nanny or babysitter who will take care of your children---you will not be inclined to open up page number two or page number three. SEO means search engine optimization. Please take a look at this slide while I give you a warning because the wording is written differently. SEO means search engine optimization. If you do not optimize your website with keywords, images, and key critical information, your page will not be on line number one. It won\'t even be on line number five; it will probably be found on page number three of Google. And how many of you have ever gone to page number three? Nobody. Don\'t fool me. How many of you have purchased hotel accommodation after reading lines one, two, or three, which usually are sponsored offers, and then you go on lines three, four, and five? How many of you have ever purchased something beyond line number five? From the customer side and the company side: I have a beautiful hotel from Monday to Friday. The hotel is a business hotel in downtown Rome. It serves managers, businessmen, and businesswomen who go to Rome, who attend trade fairs, meetings with other companies, events, congresses, etc. My hotel is beautiful. It has a swimming pool, a spa, and it has babysitters---very good and very effective. What am I supposed to do with the hotel on Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night? Can I keep it empty? Do I have to fire people on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? My keywords must be able to attract and be offered. If you Google \"business hotel downtown in Rome,\" my hotel must be on lines two, three, or four---no more than that. If I am on page two of Google, I lost the business. I\'m not in the business environment. Do you agree with me? Is this your experience? Say yes or no, and I will know that I\'m not talking alone. Of course, it is. But then, during the weekend, what am I supposed to do? I transform---not the hotel, not the hardware, not the swimming pool, not the spa---I transform the hotel from an effective business hotel downtown in Rome into a cozy, easy-living hotel with a swimming pool and babysitters for families coming from London, Amsterdam, etc. Even probably the managers who, after the working week from Monday to Friday, will ask their families to arrive and enjoy the hotel. I\'m not transforming the hotel; it would cost too much. I\'m transforming the value proposition of the hotel based on SEO---based on search engine optimization. Are you getting the message? Who was asking, \"What is SEO?\" Alba, is it clear for you? I don\'t know your working background or experience, but the idea is very simple. SEO is of paramount importance nowadays. People who tell you that SEO is not valid anymore because you can somehow improve the visibility of your hotel website by using ChatGPT---they are giving you pure nonsense. They are lying to you. That is not yet the case. I\'m sorry, experiment doctors, but I think you should also know this because you might be enjoying a working week in a specific location, and then you might enjoy a beautiful weekend with friends or family, and you might not even change your hotel because the hotel, using the proper keywords, is generating the proper value proposition. Thank you for calling it interesting, but it\'s not just interesting---what I\'m telling you is the interesting reality of life. Nowadays, SEO is one of the best integrated traditional legal marketing strategies because it allows companies such as a hotel---which is the basis of my example---to fill up the hotel\'s room occupancy from Monday to Friday as a business hotel, and from Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday as a cozy hotel for families. They offer exactly the same dinner, the same location, the same hardware, the same rooms, etc., but by changing the keywords, they are not fooling you but highlighting features of the hotel which might be perceived as good both by business managers and family people. Business managers consider a swimming pool an option and consider the hotel\'s location in downtown Rome a priority. As a weekend customer, you might find the swimming pool is priority number one, and probably you don\'t care if the hotel is downtown Rome because you\'re focusing on the swimming pool, babysitters, cozy atmosphere, and good Italian food, etc. By matching this, the hotel can have 90 percent occupancy Monday to Friday and 90 percent occupancy Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night. This is business. This is today\'s business, and this is how you can envelop business. You focus on search engine optimization. What is the best example, or what is the best company, that generated the best SEO---the best search engine optimization? I don\'t want to answer; I don\'t have time to get the answer from you. But generally speaking, you are in the middle of any city---your own city, a different city---you\'re a tourist, manager, etc., you\'re looking for a restaurant. What do you type on the\...um\...and what is it that you type or say in your voice message? \"Find a restaurant near me.\" Do you do that? You\'re in Amsterdam; you don\'t know anything---\"restaurant near me.\" You\'re in New York; you\'re looking for a restaurant. You say exactly the same: \"restaurant near me.\" Is that correct? Even if you\'re a doctor, very often you do that. The answer is: these people have mastered SEO. The name of this restaurant in New York is \"Restaurant Near Me.\" I hope you\'re laughing, but this is business. They fully understood that regardless of where you are, regardless of your nationality, this is genius. I agree with all of you. This is something genius---that the restaurant\'s name is not Mauritian Sunset or Singaporean Sunset. This is a pure genius approach because if you are in Queens and the restaurant is located in downtown Fifth Avenue and you say \"restaurant near me,\" artificial intelligence and everything else will bring up first line \"Restaurant Near Me,\" which is located 40 kilometers away, but that is the first option. So, this is a good example of search engine optimization. People proactively think about this. You translate it into your language. You open up a restaurant in Greece with \"Restaurant Near Me\" in Greek, \"Ristorante Vicino a Me\" in Italian, etc. This is a piece of genius because they know how to master search engine optimization. What is the final aim of any company? You Google \"restaurant near me.\" You want your restaurant to be number one. All the rest will come after. Ninety percent of people, exactly for the same reason that we read only three lines of an email, will be reading \"Restaurant Near Me,\" and probably you will get a taxi and go there. You will not even think that there are plenty of restaurants much closer to you because you are in Queens and you must go to Fifth Avenue. But as a matter of fact, that is the difference, and that has generated, believe it or not, a huge success for this restaurant. Number six: gather customer feedback. Very often in my consultancy activities, when I support companies to go international, companies that receive negative feedback say, \"Oh, but that\'s something terrible.\" That is absolutely not true. One of the best options generated by digital marketing is that you get feedback. Feedback is of paramount importance because it allows you to take corrective actions. If you would send a beautiful commercial with a beautiful basketball player and the motto \"Just Do It\" on television at 9:30 at night on Saturday night, probably you are spending two million dollars, but probably all your potential customers are outside drinking beer, and you will never know. With digital marketing, you have an outstanding advantage. People will write reviews, give you feedback, tell you through surveys, emails, interviews, etc. If your product is lousy or beautiful, if the value of the product is higher than the price, or vice versa, price is higher than value, etc. Everything is generated by gathering feedback. It\'s of paramount importance that you read all the lines. In the meantime, I will tell you a beautiful story, and it\'s again a real story coming out from the business world. Who of you knows Barnes & Noble? It\'s a very famous and very big bookstore chain in the United States. Barnes & Noble was about to go bankrupt ten years ago because they had to face fierce competition from any other electronic book platform and Amazon. So they said, \"Okay, we have two alternatives: we go bankrupt, or we find some ways to remain operative and competitive in the market. What shall we do?\" They started sending, via email, requests for interviews and surveys, and they got back a huge amount of responses because they had a huge database of email accounts. The survey asked: \"What shall we do to make you come back to the bookstore? What pleases you when you are in the bookstore? What disturbs you when you are in the bookstore?\" The answer was, \"I love to go to the bookstore because I like to smell the perfume of the book. I like to touch it, etc., but I don\'t have any seat. I cannot sit and think and reflect upon it, etc. So there, I pick up the book, I can just glance at it, then I have to put it back.\" Number one. \"Your sales clerks are always very aggressive. They come here and say, \'Good morning, how can I help you? This book is a special offer. If you give me your credit card, I will deduct the points,\' etc. I am sick and tired of people soliciting purchases. I want to take time to review a book, to reflect upon it, to touch it, to smell it, etc., because what I am missing from Amazon is exactly the possibility to take some time to decide on a book.\" Barnes & Noble nowadays is not only competitive and alive and kicking in the market but is competing fiercely against Amazon---not only with the Barnes & Noble website, not only with the Barnes & Noble\'s earning and burning of points, but with the picture that I\'m showing you in a few seconds, thanks to the fact that they got a lot of feedback. They decided to open up, in their huge big stores, Barnes & Noble Cafés serving only Starbucks coffee. What is the marketing idea behind this? You go there, you pick up five books, even ten books, you go into the Starbucks Barnes & Noble Café corner, you sit, you sip a beautiful coffee---caramel, mocha, whatever interests you---you spend 20 minutes to sip coffee and choose from books. Okay, you are welcome to do that. You don\'t have to stand in front of a shelf, pick up a book, glance at it, and immediately put it back and stand still. If you go with five books, you don\'t know where to review them; you don\'t have time and space to reflect upon them. With the customer feedback, the company was also able to build the ICP because I would be the perfect ICP of Barnes & Noble if I lived in the United States. I don\'t want to buy books on an e-commerce platform even though they cost less. I want to go there and enjoy a beautiful cappuccino or espresso coffee with five books. I glance at them, I read them---one management book, one social studies book, etc. At the end of the day, that was the winning idea because, by gathering information thanks to surveys, they were able to change their business model. Advantage for Barnes & Noble: their customers remain way longer in the store, and they buy more books because they have more time to eventually purchase two books instead of only one, three, four, etc., and in the meantime, they can enjoy coffee. What is the advantage for Starbucks? All new customers. Those customers are not the typical ICP of Starbucks. Starbucks customers go there, pick up everything, run to their offices, and they disappear. Starbucks\' ICP in Barnes & Noble is a completely different ICP. So the advantage is for Starbucks, the advantage is for Barnes & Noble, the advantage is for their customers. They enjoy spending more time there with coffee and more books. Strangely enough, not only did Starbucks and Barnes & Noble develop something like 70---yes, 70---Barnes & Noble Cafés serving Starbucks coffee exclusively, but in 2024 they will rejuvenate almost 250 Barnes & Noble bookstores in the United States, making them Barnes & Noble Cafés serving Starbucks. And another family-oriented idea: they are now, after a two-party agreement---Barnes & Noble and Starbucks---promoting and developing a three-party agreement: Barnes & Noble, Starbucks Café, and universities. In the university, the ICP is perfect. Both for Barnes & Noble and for Starbucks, students go there, they think, they talk, they send an email, the Wi-Fi coverage is complete, they study, they pick up a book. Probably they don\'t even buy it, but they read it, review it, return it, etc. It is not automatic that they buy the book, but as a matter of fact, another 150 stores will be opened. Barnes & Noble and Starbucks will be opening in university venues---in university bars, breakfast clubs, restaurants, whatever you want to call it. This is an outstanding idea, and it generated an advantage for Barnes & Noble, which used to be only a brick-and-mortar store, and now they are enjoying brick-and-mortar stores with customers, with rent, with energy that they have to pay, but on the other side, they\'re happy because they\'re competitive again. Are you getting the point? I\'m also concerned about the doctor who needs to get the point---not because I\'m putting pressure on her, but because I would be delighted to know that even doctors know what marketing means. It is not a science, and nobody can give you that. Nobody can lie about that. On the other side, albeit, there is a discipline nowadays. Marketing is a fundamental discipline for any business, even for hospitals, even for museums. Early this morning, I delivered the same course to on-campus students, and they are all Master in Arts students, and one lady said to me, \"You\'re opening up a new world to me because I manage a museum, and I am understanding that we have done zero marketing for our museum.\" And I said, \"That is your mistake. Opening hours and new products and the possibility for me to sit and sip a coffee while I\'m looking at a beautiful Picasso drawing---that is not fast food, there is no smoke---that is marketing. There is absolutely no limit to how to market and promote a product.\" But let me go straight to the fifth one: utilize email marketing. Why do we talk about this? Because in a world full of social media, if I receive a personalized email, I am happy. If I receive a personalized offer based on my preferences, interests, fears, and desires, etc., I am happy because I feel like that company is thinking about me as an individual. Email marketing can have an outstanding return on investment. I know companies that send one million emails and receive half a million responses. There is no return on investment as great as email marketing. The cost is very low. Of course, the key success factor is personalization. What I told you yesterday---you remember, the last slide was data and personalization. You personalize an email, you build an outstanding company reputation because as soon as I receive your email, I will put it on my priority list to be read. If you keep on sending me spam, after two or three days, I unsubscribe, and believe me, I\'m exactly like you. I keep on quitting subscriptions because I land on a website: \"Please give us your email account and we\'ll send you a beautiful ebook, and we will invite you to a free specific webinar.\" I\'m interested because I\'m a professor; I want to be updated. I want to be informed about new things coming from sales and marketing and general management and the hospitality industry, etc. If everything is unnecessary, not useful, general, generic, not detailed, and not tailor-made for me, after three, four, five emails, I unsubscribe right away. Email marketing is of paramount importance because you will be able to talk to people everywhere in the world. Believe me, it\'s of paramount importance to reach people in Afghanistan, India, Turkey, South Africa, Mexico City. You send an email, you talk to all of them, you make sure that the language and the content are consistent, and you will receive an answer if it is consistent. Lastly---no, it\'s not last because here I have to talk to you about a few things---organize events, meet the people, organize things that will allow you to look at your ICP face-to-face, make emotional evocative events. Rome is a beautiful piece of theater for this, but Italy and many other countries are beautiful and can offer beautiful pieces of art where you can organize events. The event is of paramount importance to integrate marketing with digital. You run only digital campaigns; probably you\'re successful, but at a certain point, you need to get in touch with your people. This is again methodology; this is what marketing is all about. Let me give you an example, a question to you---but again, do not respond and do not spoil my message because I have five slides explaining what I am talking about. Can you guess the name of the company which generated the fastest and biggest growth in the history of business? Don\'t answer, but don\'t look, don\'t surf the web; I would get offended. Which is the company that generated the biggest growth in the smallest amount of time in the history of business? They study the case in universities. No, not TikTok, not Facebook, not Google, not Apple, not even Amazon. Let me give you a hint: they are active in the canned water industry. It\'s not Coca-Cola, it\'s not shoes. Let me show you; you will be completely surprised. Liquid Death. What the hell are you talking about, professor? Liquid Death is a company which started business three years ago, starting from zero. They call it Liquid Death. It\'s canned water---sparkling water or plain water coming from the mountains of Idaho or I don\'t remember the origin. So the product is very good, but the name is Liquid Death. The motto is \"It kills your thirst.\" The three cans are \"Grave Fruit\" instead of \"Grapefruit\"---water flavored with grape. \"Obituary\"---squeezed to death. \"Severed Lime\"---sparkling water with a little bit of lemon, squeezed to death. Well, we\'re talking about---you go to a supermarket, you find yourself in front of a boring wall full of plastic bottles, canned bottles of water of any brand in Italy, the United States, everywhere. Then you find yourself in front of this, and you hear the story. Liquid Death is the world\'s fastest-growing company ever in the history of business. No one reached from zero to a 1.1 billion dollar company in three years. Don\'t be scared---it\'s just water. What is the idea behind it? Number one, the name of the brand of the product is very provocative, aggressive, somehow---I would say it\'s a little bit violent: Liquid Death. \"I don\'t drink Liquid Death.\" Yes, you can drink it; it\'s only water. Don\'t be scared; it\'s just water. These people are earning 263 million dollars in one year. They have a queue in front of their door, knocking and saying, \"Can you please send me three, four, five, ten containers full of your beautiful water?\" There is other water in the rest of the world; there is plenty of water in any supermarket in the United States. Why are these people successful? Unique branding, unconventional approach, humor, rebellious tone, eco-friendly message---you can recycle. \"Give me back the bottle, give me back the can because I can recycle it.\" You go to a supermarket, you buy plastic water, you drink it, you use it only once---that plastic bottle, three years from now, will be in the ocean. You buy from me, you buy Liquid Death, which is humorous, aggressive, provocative, rebellious, and a lot of other things. If you surf the web---don\'t do it now; you must be concentrated and focused on my value proposition---but if you surf the web, you will find a lot of videos on YouTube of cartoons of Liquid Death\'s monster cutting heads and blood all over the place. And then there\'s a voice that says, \"This water is very dangerous because it\'s Liquid Death.\" They are very provocative. They did only digital and social media campaigns. They started selling like crazy because the name was provocative, the message---the overall message was very provocative. But you know what made the so-called quantum leap three years ago? It was a physical, traditional, yet very provocative and creative physical marketing approach. You know what they did? They paid a witch---and this is not a real witch, of course; she is a very famous actress---and she went to the Super Bowl with this face mask, with a Liquid Death bottle with a gold straw, and she was hexing both teams from the stands. She was sending hexes, meaning sending bad wishes: \"I hope you might die. I hope you might drink water and crash against another player.\" She was sending hex warnings to both teams. You know what happened? A lot of people---the entire stadium---stopped and started staring at the lady, and cameramen were showing her with this face, sending, of course, provocative words to the rest of the world. So Liquid Death---it kills your thirst. \"Grave\" instead of \"grape,\" etc. You will see the video tonight after nine o\'clock on YouTube, and you will think that these people are crazy. These people generated a 263 million dollar turnover on a yearly basis in three years. They are capitalized at 1.1 billion dollars in the stock market in the United States. They mixed and integrated physical marketing---of course very aggressive, of course very provocative---with this creative idea of a witch attending the Super Bowl 2023, starting hexing both teams. And of course, you\'re right. Think about what Melissa is writing: \"A bit over the top. The fact that you have an option to sell your soul is deplorable. Try new stealth speech that isn\'t for Satan worshippers.\" What do they write? \"People love us on Facebook.\" And look at Antonio: \"You think it\'s funny to joke about eternal damnation? You guys need Jesus immediately.\" People love us on the internet. So the provocation is there, the mountain water is absolutely there, the product is very good, sustainability is the added value, but provocation, creative innovation, thinking out of the box has made them a successful company. If you would ask me five years ago to get into the canned water industry in the United States, I would have told you, \"You must be completely crazy. You must be smoking a big joint of marijuana because there\'s absolutely no way you can win over that extremely competitive market. There\'s absolutely no way you will win.\" Well, they won. I am happy to use it as an example because a lot of times people say, \"Yes, professor, but you are talking about old marketing strategies, etc., but I\'m very little, small, and tiny. I will never make it.\" That\'s not true. Liquid Death is an example that they have a unique brand identity. They capitalize on an irreverent, bold, arrogant, provocative approach to marketing. They focus on sustainability; they keep on writing, \"Please use our cans because we can recycle them.\" And you know what? A lot of people collect the cans; they don\'t drink from bottles, and they have different cans in their homes. So probably a full old-fashioned mother would never buy that, Andrea, but ask their sons and daughters and family managers and people---they all go there and buy Liquid Death because it\'s super cool to have on the desk, to be a super manager with a Rolex and also with a can of Liquid Death, and you drink Liquid Death because that is the message. As a matter of fact, Liquid Death is something that Vincenzo is correctly stating: \"Bad talk but nice talk, but it\'s important that you talk to me. It\'s important that you talk to me because, as a matter of fact, it has generated a huge amount of information and people started knowing in the entire United States that Liquid Death brand---as soon as they got a witch sending hexes to two football teams---it was so awkward, so strange that everybody started asking, \'What the hell is she doing? She\'s a professional witch with Liquid Death, and she is drinking Liquid Death.\' Everybody started with curiosity. A lot of people, even the skeptical ones, purchased the product. Then the fact that I can use an aluminum can instead of plastic made the difference. So, as a matter of fact, if some of you say to me, \'Please, professor, don\'t fool me because no one can be so successful in the marketing environment where everything has already been invented.\' This is the proof that it\'s exactly the opposite way. The competitive advantage of Liquid Death is exactly that. Let\'s keep going ahead. Otherwise, I won\'t have time to tell you all the exact images. There is no negative publicity; publicity and advertising, even if negative, are of paramount importance to create opportunities to upsell and cross-sell. This is another strategy which is very important to implement in any business. Cross-selling: you buy a tie, I try to sell you a suit, shoes, socks, etc. You buy a computer, I try to sell you a printer or a scanner. You buy a smartphone, I try to sell you the in-ear headphones. Upselling is when you\'re buying a Mac, and I\'m selling you a super big Mac---a 14-inch computer---and I try to upsell. What is the final aim of cross-selling and upselling? I want you to remain a loyal customer of mine. Upselling and cross-selling have the same final strategic goal: I want you to remain loyal to my brand for as long as possible. Let\'s see if you have questions, and then we\'ll skip to the tenth. It depends, of course, on what type of negative publicity; being satirical is absolutely okay. Some ads are not only satirical; they\'re also humorous. People are laughing. Liquid Death---it kills your thirst; it doesn\'t kill you. You will see the video and you will start laughing. And if you go to the United States, most probably you will buy two cans: one for you to drink to test the product, and one to take back to your homeland because a can with a skeleton, with a skull, with \'It kills your thirst,\' etc., is anyway humorous. So to me, it\'s interesting anyway. Exactly, you could not even reach upselling, and cross-selling is the ninth one. And now we talk about AIDA. Who of you knows the AIDA sales and marketing model? Yes, Antonio, it is definitely a way to improve brand loyalty. Bud Light seems like negative publicity to me. Yes, that is something that turned out to be a boomerang for them. Richard, that is something that I would avoid talking about when it becomes absolutely negative. It\'s not that I don\'t want to talk now, but it\'s bad for business. It\'s something that gets back into people\'s minds. As a matter of fact, Liquid Death is not that negative because it\'s humorous, satirical, etc.