Read indepth magazine
Federica Miranda of Opero on Bringing 'Made in Italy' to China
For every western brand hoping to make in-roads into the nascent Chinese luxury market, one of the biggest challenges is translating your established values for an audience brought up within an entirely distinct culture.
Italian company Opero, which comprises a chain of shops selling ‘Made in Italy’-branded products, has attempted to overcome this hurdle by teaming up with a Chinese partner to help them deliver a coherent and easily digestible message for native consumers.
We spoke with Federica Miranda, sales manager at Opero, to learn more about the collaboration and how ‘Made in Italy’ can best be utilised as a selling point in China.
“Opero is a joint venture between an Italian company and Visun, the Chinese company,”she told us. “Opero is to bring in China the best of Italy. The wine and food field, furniture and fashion design. We are planning to open nine direct shops next year; they will be located in Shanghai. It will be focussed on being Made in Italy, totally in Italy and just to teach the Chinese what the brand ‘Made in Italy’ means.
“It means everything will be created, designed just in our country. The idea will be to open 28 franchise shops in the next three years.
“About the wine and food, we try to bring all the best wine but not just the top level because a lot of companies are already here, but just the good wine made from the small vineyards. We know it’s a little difficult for the Chinese to understand Italian and European food but we will try with food that they can taste with our wine.
“Furniture we will bring all the best, the luxury brands already in China, but they will be under the Opero umbrella. The same for fashion, so some very interesting brands like Ferragamo, Versace, we are thinking to bring with us a new designer, so we try to make a mix of what is very famous in China and what is new in China.”
You can watch the full video interview with Federica Miranda above this article.