Creating and Marketing a Bag in the Made in Italy Class
If you think about the things you will do when you study at Bocconi, creating a new designer purse might not be at the top of your list. But that is what can happen, and you get not only to create it, but also to study how to market the purse, at what price and to what target. This is what happened in the Made in Italy class taught by Gabriella Lojacono, reserved for students of the BSc in Economics and Management in Arts, Culture, Media and Entertainment (ACME).
"This is a project conceived together with Nicolò Gavazzi, Bocconi alumnus and founder of Up to You Anthology, an Internet portal for the sale of high-end purses and handbags made by fashion designers", explains Nicola Misani, a professor of the course."We have involved about 30 students divided into six groups. The task entrusted to them is to create a new purse to be marketed on the portal, leaving them in charge of every stage: from product design to pricing and marketing. In the end, we will see which bag sells the most". The project, which started in the physical classroom before the pandemic, has continued in remote working mode, adding difficulty to an already difficult task.
"Fortunately, the part which needs a lot of interaction, that is, creating the fashion item itself," says Sara Bosco, one of the students involved, "we managed to do in the classroom, before the Covid19 lockdown. Now in distance learning we are taking care of all the business aspects: pricing, promotion on social media, analysis of competitors. And this we can very well do in distance learning. Unfortunately, however, when the prototype is ready, only one of us will be able to receive it and touch it, the others in the group will only see a picture."
"For a fledgling company like Up To You Anthology", says Nicolò Gavazzi, who graduated from Bocconi with a BSc in Business Administration in 2004 and a MSc in General Management in 2006, "it is essential to reach in schools and universities with our projects. It is clear that from Bocconi students we expect a greater contribution from a managerial standpoint. Here it was possible to integrate the fun part of the work, creating the bag, with the marketing storytelling concerning the item that will go on sale. In fact the purses", continues the manager, "will be available through the portal from the end of June; in September-October we will take stock and see which bag is the best-selling one. This is the competitive part, if you want to call it that, of the project".
Often, in the context of projects carried out in class, well-executed works are awarded by companies and often become sources of inspiration also for established professionals. But very rarely you get to see your own idea take shape and measure its market success in real time. "Normally the creativity and the feasibility of a business project are dealt with in separate courses," says Gabriella Lojacono, "but here everything happens within the same course, and it is a significant added value. And if it is true that the health emergency has forced students to work remotely, the project has also been a way to keep them together."