The commercial, broadcast in prime time on Mediaset networks, is intended to be a strong signal of confidence and optimism, a message to accompany the company’s path to recovery after the difficulties it has experienced, with the hope of a more stable and peaceful future for all.
1.Is the prime-time spot on Mediaset an important message meant to wish for a quick and hopefully less painful recovery?
A message of hope and an invitation to reflect on the aftermath, we are clearly still in the middle of the tunnel but we need to get active immediately to look for the light. It is necessary to regain a certain amount of optimism to get going again.
2.Piccini is a leading company in the world and among the first to open a branch in Shanghai. Let’s start there. How are things going?
In China, the spread of the virus began two months earlier than in Italy. It is interesting to observe the developments in that market to try to interpret possible future scenarios in our country. The Chinese restaurant industry after three months of blockade is restarting, however, the recovery is slow and people are very afraid to gather in both public and private places. Online is growing but wine consumption in China is still very much tied to moments of conviviality, it is necessary to wait for a further sign of return to normalcy in order to appreciate a significant recovery.
3.As an experienced entrepreneur, how do you see the recovery in Italy?
Much depends on the purchasing power of citizens. At the moment all sectors are extremely affected by this crisis with the exception of basic necessities and much of the service sector. The recovery strategy must pay special attention to wealth creation, a process that must involve the state and businesses, which will have to give up some of the value added to try to recover what has been lost during this crisis. Interventions on bureaucracy and public works are equally necessary to support a choral response.
4.Data in hand, can you give us some percentages of what has been the impact of Covid on the wine market from Italy to the world?
We hypothesize a loss of 25-30% of the Italian wine market but it is still early to draw conclusions, everything is linked to the speed of the recovery. A crisis not comparable to that of 2008 either in size or dynamics, a crisis of the economic sector that goes to the financial sector: the exact opposite of what happened with the great recession linked to subprime.
6.Fairs cancelled, restaurants knocked out, tourism not to mention. There are no magic formulas to get everything back to normal. But what do we need to focus on and right away?
As the commercial we made also says, we must focus on Italian excellence. Communicate even more the beauty of our country and the quality of our products. We have the right tool to do this, which is the CMO, but here again we need to give more flexibility. The strategies and plans drawn up by companies at the beginning of the year must be able to be revised because business needs have changed enormously. It will take more elasticity and responsiveness with the aim of supporting the supply chain, facilitating access and subsequent use of funds by the many players who have contributed to the appreciation of Italian wine in the world. A more streamlined approach to the CMOs therefore that does not focus on putting stakes, obviously all this will then have to be accompanied by the necessary control actions to verify compliance with the criteria.
7.In a time of need have you also acted with donations and concrete help?
We wanted to concretely give our support to those on the front lines by donating 30,000 masks to the civil protection delegations of Tuscany, Lombardy and Liguria, and we joined the charity initiative put in place by Tannico, the well-known e-commerce portal, which will donate €1 to Milan’s Sacco Hospital for every bottle sold of the references of Torre Mora, the Piccini family’s estate on Etna.
Internally, we have committed ourselves to customers, suppliers and, first and foremost, to our employees, guaranteeing continuity of work to date and ensuring full-time employment for all employees. We consider ourselves beyond fortunate to have been able, in our own small way, to maintain employment levels unchanged without activating tools such as layoffs .
8.The image however of an Italy on its knees will not pass quickly…
In this regard, the commercial we created and also shared with our clients abroad is meant to be an invitation to remember the beauty of our country, the resourcefulness of its citizens and inspire us to pick up where we left off before this virus disrupted our lives.
9.Your companies are scattered all over Tuscany what was the general perception?
As has been said repeatedly, we are facing a democratic virus, both in the spread of the disease and in the economic consequences, which, in our case, affect the various Tuscan denominations quite uniformly.
10.Do you think that this period will inevitably bring a reset, not only in mentality but also in operational concreteness?
A circular economy must start with people, with safeguarding their well-being and health, in short: with quality of life. We will have to shine a different light, to think of a new approach to be found as soon as possible once the situation has stabilized. We certainly cannot trivialize it by thinking that smart working and online will be able to solve the situation because, as Alessandro Aresu explained in his recent book about Adam Smith’s view, “without an exchange of passions, there can be no exchange of interests, and consequently no exchange of goods. In short, the market relationship itself is made possible by the principle of sympathy.” A principle that cannot be fully developed in a purely virtual context.
11.What will be the deepest wound it will leave behind?
If we handle this with a global view, since it is a problem that touches everyone and everything, we will be able to avoid perhaps the most important wound, beyond human losses, which is that of division among different social groups. After a common suffering it is necessary to come out of it with a common victory.