THE GLOBALIZATION OF DESIGN

Venice International University, Venice - Monday, June 13th, 2011
Lecture by Marco Bettiol



On June 13th we attended a fantastic lecture by economist Marco Bettiol at the Venice International University. He talked about the present, past and future organization of Italian Design.


While discussing the current change to more global brands, he brought up Prada. I found that really interesting because everything he said aligned perfectly with one of my recent blogs about the Prada brand.

Today, about 94.9% of Italian design companies have less than 10 employees, 4.5% of companies have 10 to 49 employees, 0.5% of companies have 50 to 249 employees and just 0.1% have over 250 employees. This is the complete opposite of North America. Italy’s design industry is almost entirely made up of small companies.

In the past, Italy’s industries where clustered together geographically. There are more than 200 of these districts. However, there are 45 main ones. They all fit into four major categories, fashion, food, furniture/house wares and production mechanics. All of which are fairly low tech industries. Italy’s knowledge of production is based mainly on tradition and the sharing of knowledge within the industry and within the districts.

Marco also spoke about how Italian design links art, local culture and customer intimacy. Art is about aesthetic, good taste and the Italian style, which is done by the designer. Local culture is about specific production and how the practices are located within industrial districts. This is the manufacture stage. Finally, you have customer intimacy. The Italian customer is very demanding. They want the best quality no matter what price they pay.

Now the world is becoming far more connected and global and design has to adapt. However, it is not easy for Italians to work globally because they are use to working locally, within their districts. They are used to keeping the trade secrets of the family business. It is hard to separate “Designed in Italy” from “Made in Italy”. In other words, it is hard to separate the head and the hand. There is a lot of intelligence in the Italian, craftsmen’s hands.

This is where Prada comes in. They are a great example of an Italian company that has managed to globalize the brand. My last blog about their consistency between North American and European stores is proof of this. Marco also talked about a recent campaign of theirs where they say “Made in...” The campaign referred to how Prada produces different parts of a product in different parts of the world and then assembles them all together, cherry picking the best. For example, for one bag, the leather might come from Italy, the buckle from Romania, the lining from India and it might all be assembled in China.

Other companies, like Gucci, still produce everything in Italy. The company is owned by a French man, but it has 1200 artisans in Florence.

A lot of big expensive brands have secondary, cheaper labels, to reach more markets around the world and take advantage of the cheap labour in China. The original brand will be made in Italy, but the cheaper brand will be made in China.

The diagram below explains the percentage of products that are produced by Italian companies, which are actually still produced in the city or region where they first began.

By Anne Charbonneau (text), Laura Van Staveren (graphs) and Amanda Cox

Keywords: Business Strategy