The Rise of Storytelling as a Marketing Strategy for “Made in Italy” Products

Federico de Andreis – Università Giustino Fortunato, Benevento – Italy

Davide Marchisio – Freelance – Italy

Federico Sottoriva – Freelance – Ital

Abstract

Storytelling is the process of using fact and narrative to communi­cate something to the audience. The first approach to storytelling takes place as children, with the dual purpose of imagining a space-time different from reality, and secondly that of establishing contact with one’s parents, who are required to commit themselves daily, to transmit values and teachings. Pop­ular myths and legends perform four functions that allow human beings to understand themselves, others, the mysteries of life and the universe that surrounds them (Atkinson, 2002). These functions are:

− the psychological function: it helps the person to define himself more clearly thanks to the possibility of reordering and deciphering experiences;

− the social function: allows the person to understand what he has in common with others and what distinguishes him;

− the cosmological-philosophical function: it supports the person in having a clearer vision of her role in the world,

− the mystical-religious function: it allows the person to feel awe, won­der, humility and gratitude towards the mysteries that surround them.

More and more small and large companies are engaging in a marketing ac­tivity called content marketing, considering the idea that storytelling is the key to attracting and retaining customers, especially in culturally far-away markets.

Storytelling marketing is a description where the company combines the company’s identity with the company’s philosophy to create a product or service activity (Salzer-Morling & Stannegard, 2004).

In fact, with the global financial crisis of 2009, investors reduced their invest­ments in communication, especially the budget allocated to television (-3.1% in 2011). Conversely, the internet grew (+12.3%) (Nielsen, 2012).

But how to communicate a product to a different culture not sharing the same ideas, symbols, actions and dispositions of the company?

This study aims to analyze which strategies have been applied in the story­telling of typically “Made in Italy” food products and representative of the Italian gastronomic heritage towards Asia.

Briefly, the research aims to answer the following questions:

RQ 1: Which strategies have been adopted by small-medium-large en­terprises in order to promote Italian products into culturally distant markets?

RQ 2: Which strategies are effective, in order to be considered also for future business?

The research is therefore based on an analysis of the literature on storytell­ing as a marketing strategy and then goes on to observe some case studies.

LIMEN Conference

8th International Scientific-Business Conference – LIMEN 2022 – Leadership, Innovation, Management and Economics: Integrated Politics of Research – CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, Hybrid (EXE Budapest Center, Budapest, Hungary), December 1, 2022,

LIMEN Conference proceedings published by the Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans, Belgrade, Serbia

LIMEN Conference 2022 Conference proceedings: ISBN 978-86-80194-66-0, ISSN 2683-6149, DOI:  https://doi.org/10.31410/LIMEN.2022

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission. 

Suggested citation

de Andreis, F., Marchisio, D., & Sottoriva, F. (2022). The Rise of Storytelling as a Marketing Strategy for “Made in Italy” Products. In V. Bevanda (Ed.), International Scientific-Business Conference – LIMEN 2022: Vol 8. Conference proceedings (pp. 297-307). Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans.  https://doi.org/10.31410/LIMEN.2022.297

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Additional reading

Balboni, P. E., (2022). Thesaurus di Linguistica Educativa: guida, testi, video. Venezia, Edizio­ni Ca’Foscari, Sail 22, pp. 53-58.

Bettiol M. (2015). Raccontare il Made in Italy: un nuovo legame tra cultura e manifattura. Ven­ezia: Marsilio Editori.

Bianchini M. & Parente M. (2008). The Role of Design in the Development of the Made in Ita­ly Brand in China. Design Management Journal, 3(1), 53-59.

Bigné J. E, Royo M. (2013). Metodologiá del análisis de contenido. In F. J. Sarabia (Coord.), Métodos de investigación social y de la empresa. Madrid: Pirámide. 503-521.

de Andreis F., Marchisio D., Sottoriva F., (2022). Internationalization strategies: An over­view on the promotion of Made in Italy wine in the Chinese market. Proceeding book, 7th UNICART Conference, 131-140.

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