Italian industry has always managed to combine intellectual creativity with manufacturing. This is reflected in the history of its brand names, both great and small. They embody certain values but also have their own specific meaning. Their protection is of crucial importance both to their respective companies and to consumers.
However, globalisation and the advent of the Internet have altered many parameters, creating new challenges. In a globalised world, it’s ideas that make the different in the marketplace, and the Web offers consumers a very different shopping experience. Today’s brand is an asset with a value of its own, independent of its connection to the manufacturer: it is the subject of numerous licenses, and its identity has become fragmented. There are no uniform reference identities. It is important for a product to retain its essential identifying characteristics: not just economic value, but also an expression of beauty and aesthetic value, stimulating the imagination and feelings. 70% of the high-end market is in Europe, with Italy claiming 10% of it. It employs 1.7 million people in Europe, a third of them in Italy.
Consumers also help to build brands, interacting online. The digital revolution is sweeping away traditional brand identity systems, cutting transaction costs and increasing the need to protect brand names. Reputation is becoming a truly competitive area, and victories are often gained more by denigrating others than by self-promotion.
In the digital era, enhancing brand value also means taking account of consumers’ constitutional right to information. There needs to be a balance between the rights of enterprises and those of citizens. In a globalised world, the brand sums up a company’s narrative, embodying its credibility. But the company must be free to offer a narrative and to provide consumers with the necessary tools to make an informed choice. This does not mean denying scientific facts about a product’s potential damaging effects, for instance to health, but it does mean that intellectual property must be protected, together with freedom of enterprise. Excessive limitations can lead to a kind of “brand name expropriation.”
In this new digital world, brand protection has to meet new challenges. Internet use does not always encourage appropriate behaviour, but can – unless sanctioned – nurture the counterfeit industry. Counterfeiting generates a turnover worth billions of dollars: this poses a threat to citizens’ very health, in the food industry, for instance. Over the years, standards have improved considerably, but penalties are still very ineffective. For years, one participant argued, counterfeiting has been approached in the wrong way: there has been too much focus on protecting enterprises (intellectual property rights) and not enough on consumer protection. Some participants say there needs to be a shift from criminal sanctions to administrative sanctions, partly because the courts are overwhelmed with the volume of criminal cases.
The central issue is that of responsibility: providers say they are merely vectors, as container shippers once did, denying responsibility for the kind of material transported. But even providers, in the case of immaterial goods, must be responsible for what they “transport” and not be mere vectors. Just as shippers, before them, accepted their responsibility for material goods.
In this new globalised and digital world, it was stressed that SMEs in particular need greater legal help and tax incentives to protect their brands, which remain crucial to entrepreneurial freedom and ethics. In this globalised era, that means not only promoting products, but also reflecting new historical and cultural models.