Branding Italy’s Tuscany: PSFK Talks With Mirko Lalli

The Tuscany region in central Italy, has taken up efforts to re-brand itself. With the end-goals of encouraging people to stay longer and purchase locally, the marketing campaign, aims to positively change perceptions of the area.

PSFK got together with Mirko Lalli, Head of Marketing & Communication at Fondazione Sistema Toscana, the agency responsible for developing and orchestrating the campaign.

Why did you develop a campaign like ‘Voglio Vivere Cosi’ for the Tuscany Region?

“Cities and clusters are increasingly getting in competition one another to attract tourists, investments and media coverage. Today, cities strive to become brands through conventional and non-conventional marketing strategies, offering visitors not just a city but a lifestyle as well.

‘Voglio vivere cosi’ is a long-term communications strategy spanning from Press & TV to mobile & social media. The social media team – composed of 15 evangelists, editors, tech geeks, marketing analysts, and designers – work on a daily basis on 50 social networks and blogs to spread ‘Tuscanity’ on the web, thus discovering unmet users’ needs and priorities of the traveler who’s keen to visit our land.”

What about the message you want to spread out?

“The primary message is that Tuscany is a place for sustainable and responsible way of travelling.

We aim to influence travelers’ choices by establishing a dialogue, rather than a monologue. We’ve developed a tourist-centric relationship through social networks and have even reached out to Google to bolster our execution. This gives us the chance to give potential tourists the voice and the support they deserve. An experience design attitude gave us the opportunity to ‘re-design’ the traveler’s experience from pre-tour and on-tour to post-tour phases, consequently helping the tourist to have an improved experience.”

What developing trend or idea makes you most excited or hopeful for the future?

“One of the best things about social media is that it encourages a “prosumer society”, in which sharing becomes easier and wider. Online sentiment to the Tuscany region is already very positive; visitors have created spontaneous, quality content, covering Tuscan food, capturing beautiful photographic moments, and we monitor, encourage, and eventually amplify all of this through our services.

We are also excited about the role of augmented reality in tourism. We have an AR app in Beta, which will be available for iPhone users. This free branded utility will allow you to access user-generated reviews of bars, clubs and restaurants through location-based technologies. It will give tourists the chance to get information about historical and cultural hot spots saving their time and offering both traditional and alternative guides to the city”

Any final thoughts or reflections?

“What we observe in this campaign is an attempt to create something that takes tourists ‘behind the scenes’. The growing popularity of social media and online communities has led Tuscany to develop a brand new integrated strategy in which it communicates itself.

Trying to be authentic and sincere with our audience without forgetting we live in a world where we experience information overload and lower spans of attention, it is fundamental to not take people’s attention for granted and really take good care of it.”

Contributed by Giacomo Bracci