Serving the Customer, with Big Data and Localization

He joined Autogrill almost thirty years ago: he had just graduated from Bocconi and the company was still state-owned. Today, Ezio Balarini is Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of what is now an international private group listed on the stock exchange, which manages 300 brands for a total turnover of €4.5 billion, 60% of which is generated in airports across world. Thanks to his knowledge of global consumption trends, Balarini reveals how having a local vision and doing big data analysis are fundamental in marketing strategy today.

➜ How does marketing change in the age of big data?
From the study of mega-trends on consumer behavior three overarching themes emerge: awareness, sustainability, and sociability, which have become the guidelines for every new project.

➜ How did you apply this knowledge to the Autogrill Group?
With the introduction of the Bistrot brand, for example. The idea was born from a collaboration with Slow Food and the Pollenzo University of Gastronomic Sciences, with the aim of making Autogrill increasingly socially responsible for the way it makes and serves food. This concept, present in airports, railway stations and along certain highways, is our answer to emerging consumer needs and is the only way to ensure our group's future growth.

➜ What do you mean by consumer awareness?
Customers need to know what they are eating, how the ingredients are processed and need to have the guarantee that they are consuming healthy products. But consumer awareness has different nuances depending on the geographical area: in the United States, food is like a medicine that cares for the body; in Europe, issues like the recovery of tradition, the search for high-quality ingredients, and local products prevail; in Asia, the focus is on the quality of ingredients, but not on locally-sourced products because this is not a guarantee of excellence.

➜ What about sustainability?
Consumers prefer food grown and processed according to a process that safeguards the environment, that is healthy for the individual, and protects the well-being of future generations. This third point concerns China, for example: as a result of birth control policy, parents and grandparents are completely devoted to the care and health of their single children and grandchildren, including the choice of food.

➜ How does sociability play into your marketing strategy?
Today, the act of eating no longer has the mere function of feeding oneself, but becomes an opportunity for a convivial experience. This behavior strongly affects the transformation of restaurants. Self-service restaurants, for example, have given way to bistros which – thanks to the quality of products, the preparation of dishes by hand, and the design of fluid spaces equipped with wi-fi services – manage to condense in a single market proposition the contemporary values of accessibility, democracy, conviviality, which once were not contemplated.

➜ Is Italian cuisine one of the major contemporary food trends?
Yes, along with those of the East Asian and Indian cuisine.

➜ And in the future, what is to be expected?
An increasingly Asian and digitized world.

➜ How is digital having an impact on food consumption and habits?
The needs do not change, but digital tools allow increasing personalization of food consumption and increasing awareness on the part of consumers.

➜ In what sense?
The prepackaged dish will be replaced by a semi-tailored proposal, in which the customer can decide part of the ingredients. Alongside this, digital communication provides immediate information that enables one to know in real time every detail of what is being consumed, from the food's geographical origin to the manufacturing process.

➜ In a world increasingly saturated by marketing offers and dominated by conscious and critical consumers, how do you build brand loyalty?
With honesty and transparency in market story-telling. It is no longer just a matter of guaranteeing the performance of a product, because that is taken for granted due to the general increase in the level of quality provided; it also means sharing the values of the brand, involving the consumer also in determining the ethical choices made by the brand.