Gianluigi Zenti, President, Academia Barilla SpA - The Changing Consumer: Demanding but Predictable



Hartl / International Food and Agribusiness Management Review Volume 9, Issue 2, 2006

because we really worked on the emotional and aspiration component. We think
this is in line with the expectations of the consumers, who are looking more for
culture about food. So that is really the big change. As I said, the big evolution is
that the future consumer is not just looking on physical components like taste or
healthy nutrition. Certainly these aspects are important, but they are not enough.
In the future over 80 percent of the value will account for the emotional and
aspiration component. Thus, it is becoming more important to know how to build
equity in this area, how to build aspiration and emotional values.

How do you communicate your products to the consumer?

Gianluigi Zenti: This is becoming more and more difficult. Thus, another big
challenge is that TV is less and less effective. Before you could do TV
advertisements and it was easy to build equity. Today, there are too many channels
and people do not watch TV as much as they were used. So you need to work on
many other, below-the-line activities. For instance, we have a theatre in Parma -
teatro del gusto (theater of taste) -, where we do theatralization of gastronomy. It is
like seeing a good movie, where people feel emotionally involved. Thus, we try to do
the same thing with food. In addition, we have many laboratories, where we do
technical evaluation. We do culinary classes where you actually cook and we do
tasting classes, where it teaches you how to distinguish the different type of
products. Thus, another big problem is that a lot of people cannot distinguish a good
coffee from a bad coffee, since nobody taught you what is good and what is bad, or
what you should look for. So we are building a whole database, a knowledge center.

We are going to start teaching, because the consumers are expecting the
manufacturers not just to produce but also to teach them about products and how to
use them. This is a big evolution, not just being a manufacturer but also a big
communicator of knowledge.

There are a lot American-Italian products in the US marketplace, which are
probably not close to the original. Does this factor make it even more important to
educate consumers?

Gianluigi Zenti: This is a big problem, because 70 percent of the Italian products
sold in the US are actually not real Italian products. They might have an Italian
name or an Italian flag, but they are made in Argentina or Canada. This is a big
problem, because when consumers do not like these products, they loose trust in the
Italian food and they would never buy the real Italian product. So education is the
only way to give consumers the tools to be able to select which product they want to
buy and it will give more return on the investment of the company. This is a very
long and costly process, but sooner or later you have to do it. Thus, you can not give
up on the role of giving culture. In the end culture is the base of the business. We
think that the evolution is going to go back to basics. If you start teaching people

© 2006 International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IAMA). All rights reserved.

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