Alfa Romeo
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"Everybody says they obviously want to find the best television they can within their price bracket. They’d answer all these questions as if they were hyper-logical, they’d say that obviously if this thing costs less than the iPad, and it’s better, then they’ll buy it. Then reality comes into it, and actually, the reason they buy the iPad is that they know that every time they get out the Samsung, all their friends will say: “why did you get that, why didn’t you buy the iPad?” and that this will bring with it a little burst of anxiety and a little burst of effort. Never, never underestimate the importance of that. If you buy a Ford or you buy a BMW or a Volkswagen and it breaks down a lot, it’s Ford’s fault, and you and all your friends will go: “golly you’re really unlucky you bought that new Ford and the clutch plate’s gone, bloody hell, I do feel sorry for you”, and you will get a degree of sympathy from your friends, okay? If you go and buy an Alfa Romeo and the clutch plate goes, deep down all your friends are thinking: “what does he expect, he goes and buys an Alfa Romeo, what the hell does he expect?” If you’re going to buy this flash, weird Italian car, it’s going to break down."
"Immense factories spring up and grow where there were only fields before: Richard Ginori and Cartiere Binda to the south, along the Navigli, the new Centrale del Latte in via Castelbarco. To the east, on viale Corsica, Motta produces its panettones. Alfa Romeo, recently nationalized, is making racing cars at Portello. It's the golden age of the eight-cylinder sports cars."
""Ferrero was a reserved company, not very accessible to journalists, and for me, who came from Alfa Romeo and the public world, this was a peculiar novelty. I spoke to Mr. Michele about the need for Ferrero to open up to the outside world. His first move was to open the doors of the factories to schools. You can imagine the fascinated look of thousands of students who encountered endless jars of Nutella and Kinder Surprise eggs… It was also the beginning of a partial opening to the outside world so as to present Ferrero as a possible model for Italian industrialization.""