Brands need a strong identity, not to cling to someone else's. The Balocco and Ferragni affair

The fact: the Italian Competition Authority fined the companies of the famous influencer Chiara Ferragni, along with the confectionery company Balocco, with a total penalty of €1,075,000 for unfair commercial practices related to the Pink Christmas pandoro. The fine for Balocco is €420,000.

The Antitrust claims that the companies led consumers to believe that by purchasing the pandoro, they were contributing to a donation to the Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin, when in reality, the €50,000 donation had already been made by Balocco months earlier. Companies associated with Chiara Ferragni collected over one million euros from the initiative.

How did they get to this point?

The Kit Kat & Twix case. Does kindness really pay off for brands?

 

Sometimes, when we think about marketing, an aggressive and unforgiving environment comes to our mind.

After all, market is competition, right?

However, many people value integrity and fair play. And they wish to reward brands that embrace these values.

If you win the mind, you win the market: the era of Brain Engine Optimization

By dint of SEO talk, we risk to forget that it’s not so much important to be at the top of search engine pages, as to be at the top of people memories.

More precisely: when our potential customers express their needs, we should already be in their minds.

Goal dilution: why we desperately need to focus our brand positioning

The second half of the last century, in the world corner where I was born, experienced an astonishing economic progress.

An unprecedented well-being allowed many people to access for the first time a lot of consumer products, from food to appliances, from clothing to furniture, from automotive to entertainment.

It was an age of proactiveness and optimism, full of deep political and social contradictions, but nevertheless driven to a better future.