THE GENIUS LOCI THEORY

International Lecture by Guest Speaker Alberto Campagnolo

As part of the IMCCI International Lecture Series, first and second year students attended Alberto Campagnolo’s “Genius Loci Theory” workshop.  Campagnolo is a Brand Management Consultant for Luxury, Lifestyle, Fashion and Design brands.

In the three-hour long seminar, students learned to analyze and understand high fashion advertisement, not only through their famous logo but also through these steps: storytelling, location-brand and genius loci.  Campagnolo explained that Storytelling focuses on the internal and external stories of the brand, giving as example different Italian brands such as: Fendi, Moschino, Gucci, Prada and Ferragamo.

All theses brands are Italian but showcase their own origin, essence and story in different ways.  For example Gucci, from Florence includes elements that are connected to this Italian city.  On the other hand, Prada uses more sophisticated and nationalist elements to make sure everyone knows it’s from Milan.

photos by Cecile Kao

Location-brand is about the connection between the brand and its place of origin.  Students learned to recognize the core values of a brand, these values can be found in the color, texture and patterns that the company uses to identify itself.  All of this elements must be reflected on the brand’s marketing campaign for a successful advertisement.

For this step, Campagnolo presented a short advertisement of Stefano Ricci, where towards the end of the video it clearly stated the values of the brand with three important keywords: honor, power and pride.

Another important example was “Love in New York”, a short video clip from Tiffany and Co..  This ad presented the uniqueness of the brand and its connection to the city in simple, but not stereotypical ideas.  It showed emotions like: love and romance, emotions everyone can relate to.  Campagnolo emphasized the way Tiffany and Co. presented it’s brand values of being reliable, long-lasting and meaningful.  Last, but not least is the Genius Loci theory, it is the relation between the city of origin and the values of the brand but without forgetting the importance of micro-location.

Campagnolo explained the difference between the Gucci store in Florence and the Gucci store in Tokyo.  In Florence, the store represents a pretty, chic, elegant version of the brand, whereas in Tokyo it customized its products with an exclusive anime version to make Japanese people feel the connection with the city and the brand.  This marketing strategy proves that brands are able to adjust in order to show respect and to a local culture, without losing its core values.  Genius Loci goes even further to demonstrate the importance of micro-location with the example of Prada in Saudi Arabia, where the store’s architectural design included one entrance for women and one for men, in order to respect the religious traditions.

photos by Cecile Kao & Claudia Bermudez

In conclusion, Alberto Campagnolo’s workshop provided IMCCI students the opportunity to learn from his expertise about high fashion brands marketing strategies, and to prove that in the fashion industry it is possible to adjust to an environment without losing the brand identity.

–  Written by Claudia Bermudez