Any commercial proposal today requires a story. But it is not enough to have a story: history must be filtered, translated, made relevant to the market you want to talk to. Alberto Milani, co-founder and president of Piazza Italia, knows well. Because if your messages remain self-referential, if they play as one hundred thousand equal stories already told by your country, they will simply not be heard. And in a market like New York, where everything is already there, not being heard means not to exist.
This is why Piazza Italia stands today on four pillars: Space, Services, Network, and Media House. The latter is not a secondary aspect, but a strategic addition. It is the fourth new pillar, the one that holds together the other three and sends them to the world. “Any message, to be heard in this market, must be relevant,” says Milani.
Within the Piazza Italia Media House, the work is multidisciplinary. There is press, newspaper, video, digital network, cinema, podcast. But the problem, Milani explains, is not the lack of content. It is the lack of continuity. «Your message and your presence must go beyond the journey you have made». Many Italian companies arrive in New York for a fair, sell, and then disappear. “In addition to whether you are there or not, you must have an instrument that continuously makes you present and active”.
Everything that is done within Piazza Italia must become the history of the square. A living square, by definition, is the one where people tell each other and the message is continuous. It is not a novelty: since the Middle Ages, the market was as commercial as a place where the community was told. Milani wants to replicate this model. “We must have a continuity in the message we give and as we touch various sectors and opportunities, it is important that these sectors and communities be represented and carried forward with targeted messages.”.
In a world where the first contact is often the last, being the first to tell well becomes fundamental. “In a social media world, you only have a chance to be relevant. You only have a chance to make a good impression or a bad one, many times,” explains Milani. If you do not have preparation, history, lists, appropriate photos, if there is no description of the cured product, then it is your last chance to do well and make you remember.
How do you hold a unique identity together when you tell different sectors? The project of Piazza Italia was born from the jewel, because the majority of the founders came from the sector. But today it is open to many sectors. “We realized that the problems to be solved and how to face the various stakes we have established are actually common for all sectors, beyond the jewel”. Milani makes an example: to a company that produces pasta, good consumption that costs decimals of a jewel, what is it for? A presence that goes beyond the sporadic fairs. A prestigious place to meet buyers. Business services, a sales manager. Organize an event, choose the chef, dishes, recipes that best get married with your pasta. And then? “Then you need the media house because your message continues to move on.”.
Don’t you have an office and an address? Then you’ll have to meet someone sooner or later. “Where are you going? I’m going to the hotel. You can go to a hotel in a restaurant. You can do it. But it certainly does not prove professional. But at the first question “you are in New York, yes or no?” There is no middle way, or you are or are not. Better answer: We are, through Piazza Italia in Times Square”.
One of Milani’s best choices is to measure results on business numbers, not on vanity metrics. A like is not an order. A buyer is not a customer. “If my only purpose is to have likes, I with artificial intelligence can get it. I have to pay something, but then I’m relevant, but relevant to who? »
The fact is that 50% of luxury purchases are made by Gen Z and Millennials, people between 20 and 40 years old. They will buy your items tomorrow. “It is therefore important that it be relevant to them. Return the story, return the number. I prefer to have a hundred people who are relevant rather than a thousand who are not.” And there is a risk in younger generations: self-referentiality. It lies within its own world, it is believed to be important, but it is important only within a community of characters that are not relevant to what you have to do.
For an Italian family company, having a communication structure like Piazza Italia changes everything. Most Italian companies are family companies. What in Italy is considered average – 20-40 million turnover – here is considered small. And when a family business comes out of its country and is proposed in a vast market like this, it discovers two things. One: Family companies are not only Italian. The Chinese come with the family, the Indians, whatever. “Here the family has a value, it is shared, but it cannot be the only one”.
The other thing is more delicate. Tell them your product, your jewelry, your sweaters, your shoes, you’re the third generation, your father did it, your grandfather, your great-grandfather. “Very good. Why do I care? What’s the difference between me that I started doing shoes yesterday and you who’ve done shoes for five generations? » At the same quality and validity of the product, it is the story behind that can be interesting or boring. That is why there must be an opportunity that prepares you to tell everything in the right way, so that you are relevant”.
The Italian business, according to Milani, has been defined many times of predatory model. For years the Italian business has been like this: come, sell something, come back, you want to open the store. “Today unfortunately this model no longer exists nor is it advisable without first structure”.
In New York there is already everything. Whatever you propose is already and you don’t do it only: the Germans, the French, the English, the Africans, the Chinese etc. “Where are you? You are in the center of the world.” With Piazza Italia in Times Square, you have a safe port of people for good who share experiences of 30 years and give you advice that sometimes may not please you. “But it is better to listen to them to avoid making mistakes already committed by others.”.
L’articolo La Media House in Piazza Italia and the art of telling when everyone tells it comes from IlNewyorkese.
