Fabrizio Mosca

The Communication of Sustainability by Italian Fashion Luxury Brands: A Framework to Qualitatively Evaluate Innovation and Integration

Under the contemporary market conditions, Corporate Social Responsibility is required to turn into an integrated strategy for innovating and creating new business models. Luxury players are starting to embrace these strategies leveraging on many of their intrinsic characterizations that are, in fact, related to the concepts of sustainability and responsibility. Along with this tendency, also the communication of CSR is evolving in its contents and purposes and luxury brands are setting up strategies to engage stakeholders and customers on a plurality of communication means. Implementing an evolutionary approach of CSR requires greater changes inside the company and the communication of it needs to be homogeneous, transparent and, therefore, we argue, strategic. The power of luxury brands in the marketing expenditures favours their communication approach and impact, but what does it mean for a luxury player communicating about CSR and sustainability in a strategic way? Which are the boundaries between marketing and effective sustainable-driven strategy and communication? The chapter has twofold aims and uses a mixed methodological approach. Firstly, it aims at proposing a framework for qualitatively measuring the communication of CSR in an innovative strategic way. Secondly, it seeks to preliminarily investigate the extent of strategic CSR communication among a sample of 30 Italian fashion luxury players, through the content analysis of the CSR communications spread online, which is nowadays a trend that luxury market needs to constantly face. The research provides preliminary insights to the Italian fashion luxury brands about how to set up their strategic CSR communication and design a research model that can therefore be applied to a broader number of luxury brands.

Stone Island: Product Innovation and Market Positioning as Drivers of Value Creation

Established in 1982, Stone Island is a menswear brand entirely owned by Sportswear Company S.p.A., an Italian family business operating in the premium outdoor apparel sector. A total of 65% of the brand’s revenue comes from 48 countries, and it has been growing in revenue and profitability by leveraging a unique set of capabilities in research and development, fabric and product innovation. Stone Island has a loyal customer base, putting it in a unique market position still unchallenged by competitors. The brand’s innovation of the fabric production process and its selection of high-quality raw materials are the pillars of its value among consumers and represent features that distinguish the brand and its products. This case study focuses on Stone Island’s product innovation strategies and its subsequent distinctive market position based on high product quality and price, strong brand image and reputation for innovation. This case study further examines managerial decisions concerning marketing strategies and development of the North American market, as well as defines future long-term strategies.