VicenzaOro, the Italian jewelry exhibition held in January, has turned into an annual tradition kicking off a new season for the industry. In these latter days, it has become rather difficult to attract the attention of buyers from all over the world, but thanks to the great efforts of the organizers they manage to succeed.
This exhibition hosted a series of international jewelry industry summits dedicated to such issues as future trends, markets distribution, discovery of new markets and trade opportunities in the Web and social media, advertising and forecasting.
We asked Marina Kudrina, the publisher and chief editor of the Jewelry Garden Magazine and also the producer of Jewelry Star, the first professional jewelry brands promotion award in Russia, to share her impressions of the last exhibition.
Marina Kudrina is a recognized expert in the field of marketing communications, as well as the author of several dozens of publications on general and scientific subjects, as well as monographs and scientific collections issued by the Department of Entrepreneurship in Culture of the International University in Moscow.
What is happening now in the jewelry market in Italy and in what way VICENZAORO promotes ongoing changes?
I must say that I always like to come to this show, because I see the tremendous work done by the Italian team in terms of finding new strategies, forms of communication with the consumer and new formats of jewelry design. Yes, the process of change will be very long, but this work is true and correct, and it is aimed at the future development of the jewelry market. Italy is devising a long-term strategy. It is on the right track. Italy is, was and will be. It is focused on preserving traditions and production, on fostering a new generation of consumers.
I've been to many of the world’s largest jewelry shows, but I love Vicenza. And not just for its hospitality. As a professional in the field of branding, I see very professional steps taken to promote the "Made in Italy" brand and events shaping a certain image of the exhibition, proactive post-PR activities, very properly structured work with the press, where journalists are engaged in all events and activities getting deeply involved in this process and consider themselves part of everything that happens during the show. In addition, I would like to highlight the right strategic direction chosen to develop jewelry brands in the country. Behind all this I see a very thoughtful and faithful work of those people who elaborate this strategy, extensively using marketing communication technologies, explaining at conferences and seminars why these steps are correct and why it matters to the jewelry community. I believe that no other jewelry exhibition in the world is thus engaged in the study of processes occurring in the market and in active implementation of targeted policies aimed at understanding consumer motivations.
I see a true and correct work with small-scale companies, which can indeed be called a smith shop or laboratory of ideas. They are more flexible, and they will tug the jewelry Italy out of current difficulties, and perhaps the entire jewelry world as well. Here I mean the Glamroom Hall. If earlier I was first of all interested in the hall displaying jewelry brands, now in the first place I go to this workshop of modern designers, which is the Glamroom. I see the changes that occurred in this room for the last 3-4 years: how these semi-artisan small firms give rise to jewelry professionals. They improved the quality of their jewelry displayed in this room, their ideas acquired "texture": they have become more refined, finished, acquired good quality, making people eager to wear such pieces, even the ones made of less sophisticated materials like bronze, plastic, fused glass, and wood. These works can be truly considered as jewelry. And I can see how these ideas are successfully sold, spreading out, getting to big companies and finally get clad in more expensive precious materials. The world is changing, and the Glamroom will produce a great impact on transformations which will take place in the mindset of jewelers, simultaneously bringing forth new ideas and new, quite unusual jewelry pieces. But it is these jewelry pieces which will be chosen by the new young generation of jewelry fans, and it is in this way a new audience of consumers will be shaped. Without this new blood the jewelry market will simply perish.
Do you think jewelry will continue to be bought nowadays?
Do you want to ask whether people today have money? Yes, they have. Are consumers, say, in the middle market segment, ready to spend it? Not sure. I think they are not ready, not because they lack money, but because there are no goods able to win them. During any crisis, and there were as many as eleven of them in the last century, the society is reappraising its values. Man begins to rethink the questions of "Who am I?” and “What am I?" It is at this point that we have to offer something new that would surprise people and would be a reflection of their nature, thoughts, and how they feel in the new post-crisis world, and this means that marketing experts need an in-depth probe of basic human motivations and symbols to make jewelry designers able to produce not just goods, but goods, which are in demand.
I would like to wish you all good luck in this jewelry year and, of course, to be proactive in your development.
Veronica Novoselova, Rough&Polished, Vicenza
