PROJECTS

Pugliautentica.it at BIT Milan 2023, fourteen Apulian towns and Molfetta's Bassa Musica through the aisles of the fair. Concept by Gaetano Armenio.

The concept was called «Fai rumore!». A marching band instead of leaflets, fourteen towns from Monte Sant'Angelo to Gallipoli and their food producers. If the bass drum turns up.

The bass drum that might not arrive

The concept was simple and it was called "Fai rumore!". To launch Pugliautentica.it at Milan's BIT, the portal I had created during the 2020 lockdown, I didn't want a stand with brochures. I wanted the Bassa Musica "Città di Molfetta" moving through the aisles, in and out of the Apulia stand, turning heads before anyone read a sign. There was a problem. Just before the fair, the bass drum, the instrument that makes the most noise of all, was stuck in shipping. A Bassa Musica without its bass drum is like a procession without the saint. I spent hours between phone calls and fallback solutions until the instrument arrived.

Tourism and cultural marketing where everyone shouts

At the BIT every exhibitor tries to get noticed. The space is competitive, voices overlap. The Bassa Musica worked precisely because it didn't shout louder than the others, it did something different. The roaming music drew visitors into the Apulia stand. National and international operators stopped, the press filmed. But the performance was the door, not the content.

Behind it there was a real network: fourteen municipalities, from Monte Sant'Angelo to Gallipoli, and the region's food and wine producers, from Olearia Clemente to Pastificio Milo to Cantine D'Araprì. The portal wasn't a showcase, it was their story. And over the days of the fair the online sales of food and wine products rose considerably, because whoever bought wasn't taking a bottle, they were taking the town and the story behind it.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: launch a portal not with brochures but with an action you can see and hear
Use a real identity element: the Bassa Musica "Città di Molfetta", not just any animation
Move instead of standing still at the stand, because the roaming performance brings people to you
Network fourteen municipalities and their producers, so what sells isn't the single product but the territory
Plan flexibly: the bass drum mishap teaches that at a fair you always need a plan B
I conceived and handled the visual identity and communication
Coordinate relations with the Regione Puglia, the BIT organization and partners

What I learned

At a fair where everyone raises their voice, the only way to be heard was not to shout but to move. The Bassa Musica didn't explain Apulia, it made it cross the aisles until people came to ask what it was. And while the bass drum played, sales on the portal rose for the products of the fourteen Apulian food producers.

- Project website:

www.pugliautentica.it

- Video of the event at BIT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xioz-gJKJUo

Since 2021 I have handled communication, graphic design and at times photography for Festival Viator, the music festival of the pilgrim routes. It began with an artistic director who went round the same circuit every year to keep his festival alive. A drive to Terlizzi, an application to the Italian Ministry of Culture, a phone call at midnight. Four more editions since then, and four regions.

He’d come to ask for ‘a helping hand’

February 2021. Giovannangelo de Gennaro walks into Editrice L'Immagine and asks for a contribution to Festival Viator, then in its seventh edition. I know him well. He is a wayfaring musician and he directs the festival with Michele Lobaccaro of Radiodervish. I heard him out and told him what I had been thinking for a while. Gianni, you cannot go round every year begging from private companies and public bodies. Enough. Raise the bar and dream bigger.

From Terlizzi to the Ministry

Dreaming big, though, is done with your feet on the ground. I took him to Terlizzi, to Oronzo Amorosini, a cultural project designer. Oronzo built the dossier and submitted it to the Italian Ministry of Culture for FUS performing arts funding. Then months of silence, the administrative kind that makes you think you have wasted your own time and a friend's as well.

In the middle of summer, at midnight, Oronzo called. The Ministry had approved it. Not for one year, for three.

Festival Viator, music and pilgrim routes across four regions

Viator began in 2015 from an idea by de Gennaro and Lobaccaro and it holds together music and the world of the pilgrim routes, the old medieval ways walked again today by people looking for a slower kind of travel. Minds, hearts and bodies on the Via Francigena of the south.

From October to December it runs across Apulia, Basilicata, Molise and Lombardy. Its stages have hosted Vinicio Capossela in Molfetta Cathedral, Antonella Ruggiero, Alice and Juri Camisasca. In February 2023 the ninth edition was presented at BIT in Milan, the International Tourism Exchange. A festival of sacred music and walking routes had become a tourism product. That is what I had in mind when I said enough.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

A concrete vision worth sharing, a festival living on yearly contributions is not a festival, it is a fundraiser with music inside

When someone asks you for one thing, check whether the problem is another one, the contribution solved a single edition, the Ministry funding solved three

Putting in touch people who do not know each other, an artistic director from Molfetta and a cultural project designer from Terlizzi who would never have crossed paths

What I learned

That day I was asked for a cheque. I gave an address in Terlizzi and a sentence put badly. Dreaming big on its own is not enough, what Viator needed was not my enthusiasm but a dossier filled in properly. The cheque would have gone into a single edition. The address in Terlizzi has lasted since 2021.

At the same BIT in 2023 I launched Pugliautentica.it with fourteen municipalities and a marching band in the aisles. The bass drum, though, was at risk of not arriving.

Pugliautentica.it was launched during the 2020 lockdown, bringing together fourteen municipalities from the Gargano to Salento and fourteen agri-food businesses. Conceived by Gaetano Armenio.

Thinking about holidays in the midst of a lockdown. Carrying out tourism and cultural marketing when the world has come to a standstill.

‘Armenio, this is a red zone!’ The first ‘yes’ came from Pietramontecorvino, a village in the Dauni Mountains. Twenty-eight organisations, both public and private, each contributed 1,500 euros towards a project that was still in its infancy.

March 2020

Italy is shut indoors, Apulia is a red zone, the only maps anyone looks at are the ones tracking infections. I pick up the phone and call the mayors from Gargano al Salento.

"Armenio, this is a red zone!", they tell me. I answer by talking about itineraries and territorial marketing for the day after. The first to say yes is the mayor of Pietramontecorvino (fg), a village in the Monti Dauni. From that stubbornness comes the idea of a single brand bringing together the Holy Week rites in Apulia, the patron saint festivals, the walking routes and the food and wine, with a portal dedicated to the e-commerce of local products: Pugliautentica.it, the Apulia you've never seen. The one you literally couldn't see at that moment, by decree. A countercyclical project, designed to keep the desire for Apulia alive while everything stood still, ready to restart at reopening.

I already knew the 14 companies

I didn't hunt for the food and wine companies in the marketplace during lockdown. I knew them, they were already my clients. With Editrice L'Immagine I've handled the packaging and labels of Apulian producers for years, and among my clients I chose the fourteen most significant food products in the region. I knew what they put in the bottle and in the package because I had designed those packages myself. That's the criterion: a marketplace is worth as much as the products you put in it, and I knew those products one by one.

A visionary strategy, or simply a mad one

While many were suspending campaigns and investments, I was setting up Zoom calls and piecing a territory together. The result is a portal that combines storytelling and tourism promotion, alongside a marketplace to support local businesses in full lockdown. The numbers of the first phase: 14 municipalities from PIETRAMONTECORVINO (fg) to GALLIPOLI (le) join at the first click, 14 food and wine companies selected by me enter the marketplace when you can't even leave your own town. Each municipality and each company pays a fee of 1,500 euros, covering the portal, the e-commerce platform and the communication. In the month when tourism didn't exist, twenty-eight organizations reach for their wallets for a project still entirely to be built. An order would come in, we shipped, abroad too, while travel was still only a memory. The trade-fair launch would come three years later, at the BIT in Milan 2023, with the Bassa Musica moving through the aisles. But the brand was born here, on the phone, in a red zone.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: keep the desire for Apulia alive precisely while no one can move, and be ready when things reopen
Call the mayors one by one, even when the answer is "this is a red zone"
Work countercyclically, invest when others stop, so you're already ahead at the restart
Start from those you already know: the 14 companies were my packaging clients, I chose the most significant Apulian products among the labels I design
Pair the storytelling with a marketplace that actually ships, in Italy and abroad, not a future promise
I handled the brand, the visual identity and the communication of the portal

What I learned

At the moment when moving was forbidden, the only thing I could do for Apulia was prepare its story. 14 municipalities and 14 companies said yes to a tourism project while tourism, in fact, didn't exist. Not a yes in words: each of them paid their fee to take part. The first came from Pietramontecorvino, a village many wouldn't be able to place on a map.

That yes, in the worst possible month, told me more than any market research.

website > www.pugliautentica.it

press > www.pugliautentica.it/parlano-di-noi.html

video > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuCpIHUu1hQ

press: www.rainews.it/tgr/puglia/articoli/2021/05/pug-Puglia-autentica-turismo-cultura-agroalimentare-097ed912-afb4-40f4-917b-4a1477c63ea2.html

Fifty-two Apulians at the Palacio Real in Valladolid in 2019, with the Bitonto band and the confraternity of Vico del Gargano. Concept by Gaetano Armenio.

"Buenos días, hablo con el Sr. Armenio…" I said yes to a phone call I could not understand. Then the wrong catalogues, reprinted in Valladolid in twenty-four hours, and the return leg in four Apulian towns.

«Buenos días, hablo con el Sr. Armenio…»

One day the phone rings. On the other end, a voice speaking very fast in Spanish. For a few seconds I think it's an unusually persistent call center. Then I understand: it's an invitation to meet at the University of Bari to discuss a cultural twinning around the Holy Week rites of Apulia and Spain. That phone call is where "Plenilunio di Primavera" begins, a territorial and cultural marketing project that puts confraternities, bands, universities and institutions from both countries in dialogue.

Who held the two countries together

The twinning wasn't a handshake between two mayors. On the Apulian side the interlocutor was the Regione Puglia with Pugliapromozione and the University of Bari. It was the University of Valladolid, through Professors osé Luis Alonso Ponga and Maria Pilar Panero, that acted as an intermediary with the Royal Palace, opening the doors to us at a venue that does not usually host village bands and brotherhoods from the Gargano. Building this network meant months of phone calls, permits, and schedules to align between two different bureaucracies.

52 people heading into the unknown

In the end 52 of us leave for Valladolid. The "Cesare delle Cese" band from Bitonto, the confratelli of Vico del Gargano, regional officials, the FeArt cooperative from Molfetta, and me, whose Spanish stops at "buenos días" and little else. The morning we're due to leave, the Spanish side tells us the exhibition catalogues, the ones meant to be handed out at the opening, are wrong. In Valladolid I find a printer who reprints them within 24 hours of our arrival. The exhibition opens on time, with the right catalogues in the visitors' hands.

The second half, back in Apulia

The return isn't the end of the project, it's the start of the second half. Bitonto, Molfetta and Vico del Gargano host concerts and exhibitions inspired by the Spanish experience, creating exchanges and relationships between communities, administrations and cultural operators. Grand finale in Lecce, with a conference on Apulian and Spanish Easter rites, where the project leaves the dimension of a single event and becomes a space for dialogue between scholars, institutions and territory.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: take Apulian traditions across the border, not just tell them at home
Say yes to a phone call you can't understand, because opportunities arrive in languages you don't speak
Courage and creative madness as tools: you don't speak Spanish, you don't know where it leads, and you leave anyway with 52 people for the Palacio Real in Valladolid
Solve it on the spot: wrong catalogues flagged at departure, reprinted in 24 hours in Valladolid, exhibition opened on time
The second half in Apulia, because building a network also means bringing the guest home, not only going to them
Close in Lecce with the conference, turning an event into a space for research and institutional dialogue
I handled graphics, the layout of the photographic exhibition and communication

What I learned

Plenilunio di Primavera started with a phone call I couldn't understand. I said yes before I understood what I was saying. Then 52 people reached the Palacio Real in Valladolid and four Apulian towns hosted the return wave. When the catalogues turned out to be wrong, I found a printer in Valladolid and had them redone in time for the opening.

The projects that leave a mark begin with a voice talking too fast and keep going on problems solved.

website > https://www.settimanasantainpuglia.it/content/puglia-spagna.asp?lan=ita

video > https://youtu.be/ByBs7Kw1nG8?feature=shared

video rai3 > https://youtu.be/1ag-yqVeVE8?feature=shared

Ten itineraries and a multilingual pocket guide to Bitonto, presented at the BIT in Milan in 2017. Graphic design and communication by Gaetano Armenio.

“Ch’ tande bitontini propri a taje a’ venne chiameu” (with so many people from Bitonto, they really should have called it after you), a chef told me at the first meeting. That same year, Bitonto reached the final of the Italian Capital of Culture 2020 competition, up against Parma.

"With so many people from Bitonto, you're the one they had to call"

That's how a well-known chef greeted me, in dialect, at the first meeting of Bitonto's tourism supply chain. I'm used to initial distrust, I always take it as one more challenge. The one who had called me was councillor Rocco Mangini, with a precise bet: to build a new awareness of Bitonto's tourism and cultural heritage among all operators, public and private. The aim was to build a territorial marketing project able to hold together history, art, traditions and food and wine, involving the Municipality and private companies in a shared path.

From hidden heritage to a multilingual guide

As I had already done with VISITMOLFETTA.IT, I looked at Bitonto as if I didn't know it. I worked to bring out the richness of the old town, the city's cultural identity, the chance to turn a stopover into a recognizable destination. I identified ten themed tourist itineraries, each with a name that is already an invitation: "Di chiostro in chiostro", "I giardini dell'Eden", "Pane olio e...", "La Settimana Santa". Ten different ways to walk Bitonto depending on what you're looking for, so that the tourist doesn't get a guide to read but a route to follow for each day of their stay. The result is a multilingual pocket guide, presented at the BIT in Milan together with councillor Mangini. Not a catalogue of monuments, a story of a living place.

The ending no one expected

That year Bitonto put forward its bid for Italian Capital of Culture 2020 and reached the final, challenging Parma to the very end. Mayor Michele Abbaticchio and councillor Rocco Mangini had built a precise trajectory. VISITBITONTO.COM was one of the pieces of that trajectory.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: turn Bitonto from a stopover into a recognizable destination
Take distrust as a challenge, "you're the one they had to call" is a starting point, not a problem
Look at the territory as if you didn't know it, the same method as VISITMOLFETTA.IT
Ten themed itineraries instead of a list of monuments, because the tourist doesn't want to know what to see but how to spend the day
A multilingual guide for the fairs, a story that physically travels
I handled graphics, the guide and the communication of the projec

What I learned

A pocket guide is never only a guide. In Bitonto it was the first time the town council and private operators told the city with a single voice, and holding that table together cost more effort than the ten itineraries. Leafing through it, you cannot see that part.

A whole day for Molfetta at Expo Gate in Milan 2015, with show cooking, the Bassa Banda and local firms. Graphics and communication by Gaetano Armenio. 

The idea came from mayor Paola Natalicchio, the direction was mine. Michelin-starred chef Fabio Pisani at the stove, the band as far as Piazza Duomo and molfettaexport.com presented to Milan's councillor for productive activities.

A memorable day, for Milan and for me

In 2015 I arrive at Expo Milan with one certainty: if Molfetta goes to the Expo, it can't settle for a corner of the regional stand. Mayor Paola Natalicchio had an idea as brilliant as it was mad, to dedicate a whole day to Molfetta in front of the Castello Sforzesco. My job was to turn that intuition into a real project, not just a presence but the choral story of an entire city.

Molfetta takes over Spazio Expogate

At Spazio Expogate I built a day of many voices. I brought in the city's associations to tell Molfetta's tourism, cultural and food and wine character. With the Associazione Cuochi Baresi I organized a show cooking dedicated to the flavors of home. The Bassa Banda shuttled back and forth to Piazza Duomo, playing among tourists and passers-by taken by surprise by this Apulian invasion of sound. The schools set up photographic exhibitions to show the city through the eyes of its kids. For one day Milan had its own Molfetta branch.

Grand finale: Molfetta introduces itself to the productive world

In the afternoon it was the turn of the Industrial Area Entrepreneurs Association of Molfetta, of which I was a member. And here one thing has to be said: without that association, built two years earlier, that afternoon would not have existed. It was the foundation that gave me the standing to present myself before a councillor of the City of Milan. I presented molfettaexport.com before Dr Tajani, councillor for Productive Activities of the City of Milan, and the interested operators. A public-private alliance brought onto the stage of the Expo.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Turn other people's intuition into a project: the day at the Castello Sforzesco was the mayor's idea, the direction I built myself
Make different voices play together: chefs, band, schools and businesses under a single direction
Take the music into the street: the Bassa Banda all the way to Piazza Duomo catches more attention than any brochure
Close with the businesses, not just with the showcase: the presentation of molfettaexport.com before the Milan institutions
I handled the graphics and the communication of the project

What I learned

I did not end up in front of Milan's councillor because of the party outside the Castello Sforzesco. I got there because two years earlier the industrial area's business association had been set up, and that gave me standing to be in that room.

Doors open on what you built earlier.

video > https://youtu.be/qiv_A3KeNNU?feature=shared