Dr. Giovanni Perosino
101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior
Dr. Giovanni Perosino, Chief Marketing Officer, ITA Airways
Dr. Giovanni Perosino, the marketing maestro and CMO of ITA Airways, orchestrates a symphony of strategic brilliance that captivates hearts and soars brands to new heights.
Perosino, who has built his career for over 20 years, possesses an enchanting prowess for telling brand stories that create remarkable consumer odysseys.
Beyond just aviation, Giovanni's knowledge extends into the luxury and leisure industries, where he creates marketing treasures. In the past and present, he has created a tapestry of affluence, coordinating harmonic revenue growth and brand expansion for renowned firms, including Lamborghini, AUDI, Volkswagen, and FIAT.
Perosino's innovative customer satisfaction skills and collaborative leadership style have resulted in unbridled creativity and continuous success.
“Creating a sonic system for a brand is a high ambition and to create a recognizable sonic DNA is a marketing dream.”
— DR. GIOVANNI PEROSINO, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, ITA AIRWAYS
Uli Reese: What brand first made a serious impact on you?
Giovanni Perosino: When I was a boy, it was Adidas, and I still adore the brand. I went crazy when my mama bought my first shoes. They were white with blue stripes. I felt like the most stylish man in the world wearing them. I was flying.
Reese: You’ve had a long career in this industry. How did you choose marketing?
Giovanni: I've always been fascinated by the world that a brand can represent. I first absorbed these worlds as a pure consumer, but then I realized that somebody was building these worlds, and that attracted me to marketing. What is the story behind the brand? Who are the people behind this? I studied marketing simply because I was interested in it; I did my baccalaureate in marketing. I’ve been a marketing guy since I was 14 or 15, but I started working in the industry when I was 18 and at university. I’ve invested my entire life in this world that I adore.
Reese: There are many countries where brands are more trusted than the government. Do you feel that responsibility?
Giovanni: I’m lucky that I have three boys, and I’ve noticed how young people are very opinionated about what they want from a brand. Brands now have huge responsibilities in what they do because their audience is much younger than before. So when you have an eight, nine, or ten-year-old in front of you, you must be very careful in managing that power.
Reese: How are you able to get your team to follow your vision?
Giovanni: Being a leader is a huge responsibility because you are 24/7 responsible for these people. They support you, and they work for you, but ultimately, you are the one behind the steering wheel. From a hundred people to a few, the responsibility is the same. People want to follow the vision, but you must convince them why you want to go there, so the biggest skill of a leader is to be visionary and have a convincing point of view. The second is about your leadership style and management style; you should be completely transparent and open. Let people feel you are there. Also, a good leader should be able to find every team member’s slice of genius and put it in the right place to play with it. If all of us can play at our best, we will have fabulous orchestration of everything.
Reese: Brands need to own their sonic IP, and CMOs must be able to persuade those who hold the purse strings to invest. What are your thoughts about how brands can become sonically future-proof?
Giovanni: Sound is one of the most powerful forces in nature. Without it, you can lose a lot of emotion. It can take you from happiness to sadness and everything in between. I understand its power and how it matters. This is the reality. Sounds can be intentional; with your eyes, you feel it in the brain, but sound enters you and can create a positive or negative mood. It’s fascinating to see how sound plays with this and how immersive it can be in a cinema space. Working in marketing, where our main goal is to steer emotion, capture awareness, and bring you to my place, this can clearly be the ultimate tool to reach the heart of the consumer. So it's a huge opportunity, but also it comes with huge complexity. I loved it when you talked about James Bond’s sonic DNA, and looking at it strategically, it’s crazy to see how music can transport you from character adaptation to different moments in life, suspense, action, and so on. I would put all these components into the brief and then finally check if I’ve got it – but it’s a challenge to say yes, I did it.
“Creating a sonic system for a brand is a high ambition and to create a recognizable sonic DNA is a marketing dream.”
Coming back to the movies and the example of James Bond, all of us have been exposed to it so many times over such a long period of time that we’ve all really absorbed it. If I look at myself and my exposure to this sonic identity, it’s immense, so that's part of the challenge. I have to ask myself, do I have the power to expose my audience to this huge wave of the sonic ecosystem? Because if you need to do it by media buyer, that does not work, and that's my dilemma. My dream is to own a clear sonic DNA, but how can I get this done considering that the winner of the game is an asset or a brand that works in such an intense and expositional way?
Reese: Is there a brand that you’ve always admired in terms of Sonic?
Giovanni: I always think of Apple as the brand with the magic touch. They’re an obsession for me because they’ve created a sonic identity that speaks to the things I really enjoy. They care about how, for example, you push a button on your Mac and how the touch and clicks sound. For me, this is an ecosystem because every singular note that comes from the brand has a reason to be there. Nothing is by chance.
Reese: If you had any words of advice for the younger generation who want to follow in your footsteps, what would they be?
Giovanni: Everything is based on curiosity. Curiosity will drive the brand and make your brain think. So if your drive is curiosity, you will speed up your growing process tremendously. Once you have that, you’ll naturally engage with some things more than others and also ask 'why.' Within this curiosity circle, you will find that some things are more attractive to you than others. So curiosity is a way of finding your confidence while allowing you to focus on what really matters.
Reese: And finally, is there something close to your heart that you want to share with your peers before we go?
Giovanni: Ultimately, the magic is to be free thinking. I always try to be guided by the four freedoms principles, which is that talent needs to be fulfilled, so you need to nurture it. It's important to give your team the freedom to be individuals and to let them grow. You also need freedom from fear. Fear is paralyzing, so you must be free from fear. The next is the freedom to fail. Talent mustn’t be criticized for daring to fail. Then you need freedom from chaos because it's important that all your actions are consistent with your understanding. Sometimes the creative mind is a little chaotic, so try to relax your mind. And the last is the freedom to be yourself and also well-being. I like to encourage people to grow in their own chosen direction. It's important that people enjoy a life in which personal time exists. You need laughter, love, and celebration. These principles are for my teams, and I like to follow them myself.
Note: The interview took place in Rome, Italy on the 3rd May 2023.
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