After a lovely morning exploring the streets and sights of
Florence the Symposium started with a tasting of sparkling wines from Trento in
the gardens of the Palazzo dei Congressi. Our first full session was about the
role of different media in communicating with consumers.
A good discussion followed but I felt afterwards that the
topic “Reaching tomorrow’s audiences”, moderated by Sarah Jane Evans MW, was possibly the wrong one. It developed
into a discussion about old-fashioned print versus new-fangled social media
rather than perhaps the better topic of which medium to use when trying to
reach an audience.
The panel was impressive – Alessandro Torcoli, an Italian
publisher; Jancis Robinson MW, probably the best known wine journalist in the
world; and Daniel Alegre, President of Worldwide Partnerships in Google. All
three contributed well, giving a wide range of opinions. Obviously, Daniel’s
contribution was the most interesting given that he is far closer to the
social-media cutting edge. Some of the ideas he mentioned were of real interest
to the audience – for example, he mentioned about the fashion designer Diane
von Furstenburg using Google hangouts to talk with ordinary consumers about her
new designs.
All in all, it highlighted a number of areas but time is far
too limited and I would love to see a more in-depth seminar on this topic
combining the wine industry with more people from the digital media world.
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