A joint promotion project between Business Strategies and Shanghai Morning Post is at the start. The main medium in this Asian metropolis bets on Italian wine and it does this with ‘Absolute Italy Lifestyle’. This project was created in collaboration with Taste Italy!, the Chinese company owned by Business Strategies. This partnership, presented in Shanghai by the two groups, aims at making made in Italy wine more familiar and known through an integrated promotional action aimed at the final consumer, from training to mass communication and e-commerce. This programme takes shape from Taste Italy! Wine Academy, the first Italian wine school entirely dedicated to Chinese consumers, to arrive on the pages of Shanghai Morning Post, daily newspaper (750 thousand copies daily), partner of Shanghai Media Group. This publishing group, which boasts almost 40 newspapers, weekly and monthly newspapers, as well as 10 news websites, 18 apps, and more than 50 WeChat channels, will be involved in the project.
Absolute Italy, whose aim is to spread Italian lifestyle in China from food & beverage, will be able to count on guides and columns dedicated to Made in Italy wine on the pages of Shanghai Morning Post and its various media and social channels. The expansion of Taste Italy! Wine Academy is also scheduled, with training courses in 8 among the main 1st and 2nd level towns in the Country. The wines selected for tasting will be the same on sale at the virtual stores of Absolute Italy.
Silvana Ballotta, CEO of Business Strategies and Taste Italy!, said: ‘First of all, the cultural gap is the cause of our limited presence in the Chinese market. For this reason, we consider it essential that such an important medium as Shanghai Morning Post decided to welcome our project based on a multi-channel strategy: from training to communication, from editorial tools to sales’.
Weng Tao, deputy director of Shanghai Morning Post, who attended the presentation of the project, continued: ‘We will build a bridge between Italy and China, and we will do it through Italian lifestyle’. At the same presentation, Ludovica Murazzani, Italian added consul in Shanghai, said: ‘The strong demand for Italian product is evident. Market shares are still low, so such initiatives as those of today are very important’.