Author Archives: Flaminia De Leonardi

Being sustainable matters. But when the moment comes to make a purchase, it isn’t always enough.

Over the years, a significant portion of sustainability communication has built its narrative around individual responsibility: buying less, choosing lower-impact products, repairing instead of replacing, and favoring circular consumption models.

While these arguments are important, businesses face a very concrete problem: a shared value does not automatically translate into a purchasing choice.

This is precisely where, for Spencer & Lewis, sustainability work moves beyond standard ESG communication to become positioning advisory. Before crafting a message, the real question is different: which element of the company’s sustainable model is relevant enough to directly influence market decisions?

Because if sustainability remains detached from convenience, product value, and economic goals, it risks generating consensus without driving actual behavior.

The bottleneck of sustainability framed as a sacrifice

Asking people to alter established habits solely in the name of a collective benefit inevitably introduces friction.

Consumers may fully support an environmental goal while simultaneously choosing a less sustainable product because it costs less, is easier to purchase, or seems more reliable.

For a brand, the solution cannot be achieved simply by attaching an environmental claim to its communication. What is needed is identifying whether there is a point where what is good for the environment also delivers a clear advantage to the buyer.

This shift directly involves the role of the advisor: reading data, product, positioning, and consumer behavior together before deciding which story to tell.

An effective communication strategy should never ask the market to ignore its own interests. Instead, it should pinpoint the moment where individual interest and environmental goals begin to align.

From value to advantage: the refurbed case study

This core assumption guided our work with refurbed.

The refurbished model inherently offers a clear environmental benefit: extending product lifecycles reduces the need for new manufacturing and limits resource consumption. However, relying solely on this narrative would have relegated economic convenience to the background, continuing to ask consumers to choose primarily “because it is more sustainable.”

Instead, the study conducted by the Fraunhofer Austria Research Institute provided a much broader set of insights into the economic and environmental impacts of different tech consumption models.

Our objective was to extract, from that scientific complexity, the data with the highest potential relevance for the market and convert it into a positioning driver.

Rather than merely publicizing a study, we aimed to determine which evidence could genuinely alter product perception.

Two particularly powerful figures emerged from this analysis:

• By adopting circular habits, family savings can reach approximately €2,500 over a six-year period;
• In the case of the analyzed iPhone 15, the refurbished version was an average of 46% more cost-effective compared to buying new, alongside a reduced environmental impact.

At this point, scientific data ceases to be merely supporting proof for an ESG claim and becomes a commercial and reputational asset.

The message shifts: Not just: “Choosing refurbished reduces environmental impact.” But: “There is a consumption model that can cost less while simultaneously using fewer resources.”

Sustainability is not downplayed. On the contrary, it gains strength because it is tied to a concrete purchasing driver.

Having the right to repair doesn’t mean choosing to do it

This same principle becomes even clearer when examining the topic of repairs.

The new Right to Repair framework aims to remove obstacles that make extending device lifespans difficult. However, refurbed highlighted a decisive point: making repair possible does not automatically make it convenient.

If the price of a replacement part or service approaches the cost of a new device, the legal right exists on paper but loses most of its power to alter behavior. This is why refurbed also emphasized the need for transparent spare part pricing and tangible incentives for reuse and repair.

For corporate leaders, however, this regulatory transformation opens a much broader question.

Today, a brand communicating its sustainability navigates two opposing reputational risks:

1. Greenwashing: Promising more than data, products, and processes can demonstrate.
2. Irrelevance: Complying with new standards and obligations without turning them into something meaningful for the market.

It is precisely within this domain that Spencer & Lewis operates as an advisor.

Reading compliance alongside its reputational and competitive implications means understanding which elements can support a strong public stance, which require further proof, and which should not be turned into a claim at all.

Not everything a company can say is worth saying, and mandatory compliance does not need to remain trapped in the language of compliance. When a real, demonstrable benefit exists, strategic work consists of making it understandable as a competitive advantage.

Where ESG, business, and consumer drivers meet

This is perhaps the most relevant point for corporate leaders guiding marketing and communications today.

The role of a strategic advisor is not simply finding a clever formula to convey an ESG goal. It is building the matrix where the client’s environmental goal meets the company’s P&L and consumer convenience.

These three dimensions are far too often managed in silos:

• Sustainability, environmental goals, and reporting.
• Growth, margins, positioning, and competitiveness.
• Consumer motivation: price, quality, reliability, longevity, and simplicity.

At Spencer & Lewis, our work starts at the intersection of these three levels.

In refurbed’s case, financial savings make individual benefits immediately clear; environmental data proves collective value; and unifying both within a single narrative builds a stronger reason to choose the brand.

This also means changing how we measure the ROI of sustainability communication.

It is no longer enough to measure how many times an ESG message was published or how much reach it achieved. The critical question for a CMO is: Did that evidence help strengthen a brand preference?

Because that is the precise moment sustainability moves beyond reporting to actively work for the business.

From declared sustainability to demonstrated sustainability

For this reason, at Spencer & Lewis, we operate upstream of message delivery.

We validate the solid foundation of available evidence, subject it to a relevance stress test to determine what truly matters to the market, and identify proof points capable of supporting a distinctive and defensible positioning.

We do not help brands make bolder claims. We help them understand what value they can genuinely demonstrate and how to turn it into a leverage point for reputation and business growth.

This means distinguishing between a merely positive metric and data capable of becoming news. It requires connecting research, regulatory landscapes, media environments, consumer behavior, and executive business targets. Ultimately, it means deciding—before execution—which story actually makes sense to build across PR, media relations, content, and corporate touchpoints.

The refurbed case demonstrates this method:

• The environmental data was already there.
• The economic advantage was already there.
• The scientific report was already there.

The strategic advisory value lay in identifying the exact point where these three elements form a market position.

This is likely the most critical challenge for sustainability communication in the coming years: not persuading people to choose a sustainable option despite higher costs, complexity, or inconvenience, but helping companies build, demonstrate, and clarify the exact moment where consumer interest, environmental strategy, and economic value cease to be three separate stories.

Because when making the sustainable choice also means making the convenient choice, sustainability stops being a statement of principle and begins to drive real behavior.

by Stefania Funcis

The return from the summer break traditionally coincides with the so-called “September Surge,” the timeframe in which budget planning, human resource reorganization, and heightened talent mobility are concentrated. In this context, Employer Branding is often cited as the panacea for tackling the talent shortage. However, for those governing corporate decisions, it is time for a reality check: Employer Branding is not surface-level cosmetics and, above all, does not exist in a vacuum separate from market economic dynamics.

In the contemporary work landscape, employer reputation plays an undeniable role: sector analyses show that 75% of people actively research a company’s reputation before even submitting their CV and that 69% would reject a job offer in the presence of a strongly negative reputational brand, even in unemployment situations.

However, claiming that reputation has completely eliminated the importance of the economic factor is a partial and decontextualized view. In a complex and competitive B2B market, there are organizations with notoriously challenging work paces that continue to attract top profiles thanks to above-average compensation packages and accelerated career paths.

For a company, pretending that compensation is secondary is the first step toward ineffective positioning. Employer Branding does not serve to understate or replace commensurate compensation: compensation & benefits remain an essential baseline condition. The real Employer Branding game is played a second later, when the financial offers on the table are equivalent and candidates shift their choice toward work-life sustainability, quality of time, clarity of expectations, and leadership authenticity.

From Cosmetics to ROI: The Real Cost of a “Bad Hire”

Treating HR narrative as a mere stylistic exercise creates direct economic damage. In an era characterized by a surplus of synthetic and promotional content, human resources communication also risks falling into the trap of unrealistic promises. When the external narrative does not match daily operations, the primary result is a hiring mistake.

A wrong hire (or a bad hire) is not simply a cultural misalignment, but a major financial hit to corporate balance sheets. Market data estimates that replacing a misaligned or dissatisfied profile costs between 30% and 50% of the annual salary for entry-level positions, soaring to peaks between 200% and 213% for executive positions.

Pragmatic Employer Branding acts precisely as a risk management and entry selection tool: it does not serve to paint idyllic contexts, but to clearly define what the company requires and what it is genuinely capable of offering.

Why Does the Voice of the People Require Direction?

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On the external exposure front, data confirms the centrality of the human factor: content shared by people who actually experience the company generates up to 8 times more engagement compared to posts published by official brand channels, and 92% of people state they trust recommendations from individuals over corporate advertising.

This enormous effectiveness demonstrates why advocacy is a crucial asset. However, believing that this phenomenon can be completely “spontaneous” or uncoordinated is an illusion. Advocacy left to chance risks producing fragmented or risky messages for brand stability. When advocacy generates real value, there is always a clear Governance matrix and corporate direction behind it.

The balance between expressive freedom and reputational protection is built on three operational pillars:

1. From Prescriptiveness to Empowerment (Social Media Policy 2.0): Rather than rigid rules or prohibitions, clear and shared guidelines are needed to explain how the company’s reputation also protects the professional value of its employees, defining ethical boundaries and confidentiality without constraining the personal tone of voice.

2. Enablement and Training (Employee Advocacy Program): Advocacy must be cultivated by providing people with toolkits and dedicated training sessions on Personal Branding and professional social network usage, enabling them to become conscious and credible voices for the organization.

3. Internal Listening and Culture as True Governance: The most effective defense of external reputation does not happen by blocking posts, but by intercepting dissatisfaction internally before it turns into a public vent. Creating effective and transparent internal listening channels drastically reduces the need to use private channels as a sounding board for grievances.

The Most Pragmatic Approach Is Aligning Culture and Expectations

Effective Employer Branding does not try to perform miracles or paint a flaw-free organization. The real goal lies in promoting a reality made of authentic people and teams operating in a dynamic context with clear goals, transparent expectations, and shared accountability.

It is within this framework that the evolution of corporate structures and the attraction of high-potential profiles or executive roles take place. Attracting top talent does not mean offering sugarcoated narratives, but demonstrating in practice a solid Governance model, where consistency between strategic promises and operational reality forms the foundation for mutual growth.

Clarity as the Only True Competitive Advantage

Promising idyllic environments or proclaiming abstract values does not generate lasting attractiveness; it only produces friction upon first contact with operational reality, increasing the risk of a bad hire. Employer Branding acts as a clarity enabler: it aligns candidate expectations with business goals, enhances the overall compensation package, and governs the narrative through constant internal listening.

In an age saturated with promotional messages and “HR noise,” a company’s true advantage is not appearing flawless, but demonstrating authenticity, governed with transparency, and maintaining consistency between what it requires and what it offers to the market.

di Giorgio Giordani

The famous payoff “Enjoy, it’s from Europe”, often considered a mere bureaucratic frill, actually represents the centerpiece of EU Regulation 1144/2014. This economic diplomacy tool is not a simple quality label, but the engine of an integrated agri-food marketing strategy that projects the excellence of Italian cuisine and European productions onto world markets, elevating food to a true geopolitical and cultural asset.

The invisible logo and the new food diplomacy

The landscape of European agri-food marketing is preparing to experience an unprecedented transformation. After years of relative stability around 185 million euros and a contraction expected for 2025, the European Commission has announced a financial leap of 55% for 2026, reaching the record figure of 205 million euros.

This explosion of resources is not just a budgetary matter, but a precise positioning choice. The strategic objective is the launch of the new global campaign “Buy European Food“, an institutional “venture marketing” fund designed to support exports and launch the Europe System beyond EU borders, guiding commercial flows through a massive and methodical funding architecture. 2026 thus shapes up to be the year of maximum media firepower to launch the Europe System beyond community borders.

 

The 50% Club and the Italian dominance of Protection Consortia

Access to these massive funds rewards exclusively the “heavyweights”. Regulation 1144/2014 imposes the criterion of “representativeness”: to submit a project, consortia must prove they represent more than half of the reference national or regional sector (in terms of value and volume). This ruthless sieve favors large historical players and, with the elimination of state co-financing to prevent competition distortions, only those with solid capitalization can afford to cover their share of the costs (ranging from 15% to 30%).

In this scenario, Italy dominates the market, having intercepted approximately 34.3 million euros with 19 leading projects in the latest round. The secret weapon? Our Protection Consortia (Consorzi di Tutela), which, enjoying erga omnes supervisory powers, instantly clear the representativeness threshold. Italy does not do simple advertising; it deploys a true bureaucratic and commercial machine. Examples include the bimodal strategies of the Pecorino Romano Consortium (to consolidate Italy and Germany and attack Japan) or the three-year programs of Parmigiano Reggiano in complex markets such as the UK and Australia.

 

From “Made in Italy” to “Green Deal”: the new ethical narrative

However, the narrative is undergoing a genetic mutation: Europe no longer finances gastronomic “nationalism”. To obtain funds, it is no longer enough to say that a product is good or traditional; it must be ethical. In this context, marketing is shifting from flavor characteristics to social benefits, with budgets often “ring-fenced” (restricted) for ecological transition themes. The mandatory story angles are now dictated by the Farm to Fork strategy:

• Environmental sustainability: reduction of the carbon footprint and low-impact methods.

• Animal welfare: high and certified standards throughout the entire supply chain.

• Organic regimes: the promotion of organic as a pillar for the planet’s future. Agencies today are forced to transform dry technical protocols into emotional storytelling capable of competing with the direct marketing of American or Pacific-based players.

Parallelly, the map of priorities is also changing. East Asia and Southeast Asia are the priority targets with 16.3 million euros. The reason is strategic: the Asian middle class sees in Italian cuisine not only luxury, but a guarantee of food safety and traceability—fields in which DOC, DOP, and IGP certifications have no rivals. Conversely, the approach towards North America (9.3 million) is predominantly defensive. Here, campaigns act as a shield against the “Italian Sounding” phenomenon, educating consumers to distinguish the authenticity of real Italian cuisine from local imitations.

The engineering of success: beyond execution, strategic Governance

Forget improvised creativity. These projects are rigid structures divided into 8 “Work Packages” (WP) that analytically map out every phase of the funnel, from PR (WP2) to B2B trade fairs (WP6), down to the point of sale (WP7), where every step is coded and monitored according to rigorous European standards. The true competitive breakthrough, however, lies not in simple bureaucratic execution, but in the strategic Governance of whoever orchestrates these flows.

In this complex ecosystem, Spencer & Lewis acts as a true “One Agency”, capable of governing the entire funnel through its hubs and an international network spanning over 20 countries. Emblematic is the 3.6-million-euro project won for the promotion of the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium in the United Kingdom. As the executing body and general contractor, Spencer & Lewis does not limit itself to executing Work Packages, but acts as a strategic partner that orchestrates this vast network of expertise to maximize business results, challenging itself directly on objectives and bringing added value that goes beyond the single operational task, turning every initiative into a multi-year growth engine for brands within the complex post-Brexit international landscape.

The effectiveness of these massive investments is not simply presumed or declared, but rigorously certified through scientific evaluation protocols. The EU regulatory framework demands that an independent, third-party evaluator, such as the prestigious Nomisma Institute, methodically analyzes the real macroeconomic impact and the actual shift in brand perception within target markets. This process ensures that the 205 million euros injected annually into the system are not just an expense, but produce a traceable, quantifiable, and sustainable return for the entire European agri-food ecosystem.

Why food has become a geopolitical act

The excellence of Italian cuisine does not survive on global markets just because of taste. Behind every slice of prosciutto or wheel of cheese consumed in Tokyo, there is a massive financial architecture and a planning strategy that leaves nothing to chance. Europe has decided that food is a political act and a powerful tool of global influence, a reputational armor to defend the value of our supply chains.

The next time you choose a certified DOC, DOP, or IGP product, will you ask yourself whether you are doing it for the authentic flavor of Italian cuisine or because a sophisticated European marketing algorithm decided it was time to win you over?