Italy Speakers 2017

The female model in advertisement is getting out of control, becoming a standard and photoshopped body that makes women feel inadequate. The last 3 generations think they’re fat and don’t allow themselves to act and do what they would since their image seems to be the most important quality instead of education and behaviour. They are ashamed of their bodies, and ashamed of theirselves. The world has changed and women do not relay anymore on a good marriage to survive, nor in youth and beauty to find a husband. Youth, beauty and marriage are not mandatory qualities to have a successful life anymore since we are finally independent, but our society and marketing keep carrying forward that concept, with the negative sense of guilt through concepts like ageing, being fat and staying single. Marketing campaigns base all their communication on these three (why ashaming?) concepts that do not reflect our contemporary world anymore. We can be whatever we like to be, and do whatever we want to do, but even if we know it, we do not allow ourselves to do it since we feel ashamed by our own bodies. There is a way to start a better advertisement, and it will occur from the bottom Up: our choices as mass market, our responses on social media to brands that do not respect us, by our buying choices. Everyone of us, adult and empowering entrepreneurs, can bring this campaign by communicating and empowering women around us, with our daily exemple of not being passive, with our voices that can raise in an elegant but powerful way to make BIG MARKETING understand that embracing empowering advertising makes a better bond and sells more. I am 40 years old, and we are the first generation that has the power to hire other women because w erule our own companies. It is our duty to carry on a powerful message based on our actions and choices, not our bodies, onsocial media and towards our entourage. It is our duty to show ourselves powerfully ageing, powerfully curvy, powerfully single, powerfully happy. And we need to show this not because this is the only way to be (because there is no model for normality), but because the only model out there is to be thin, in a happy relationship and forever young. And this is unbearable. Normality is large, vaste and so diverse. Let’s show it and empower new generations to bet on their own education and choices, instead of the neverending query of looking pretty to find a man. Italians have soft curves and we are mostly pear-shaped. We eat pasta and our gastronomy is one of the healthiest of the world, but advertising bodies makes us feel fat. Italian women deny pasta and welcome proteic diets, which are unhealthy in the long term. We deny our bodies, our culture, and feel constantly unsatisfied. We talk about insatisfying bodies several times a day like it was normal to feel bad about ourselves. From the bottom Up is a double sense claim: start loving your bottom, and start to rise your voice on social media against diseducating ad campaigns. The bottom of the market ecosystem is made by us. And we are millions of bottoms.

Co-Founder and Scientific Director of Urbano Creativo srl, the system integrator of innovation in the Smart City.Professor of Innovation and Geopolitics at the Geneva University of Applied Research HEPIA in the fields of Smart Building, she is scientific coordinator of Connected City Council. Her research and teaching are focused on innovation, smart&green city and tools to improve social communication. Her research appears amongst other in DataManager and Agorá – Codice Edizioni. Responsible of the All – All Ladies League Rome Chapter. She coordinates several groups focused on the future of towns.on innovation and mobility. Specialties: Innovation management, Smart City Technologies, Urban Planning, Mobility Management, Town Marketing, Town Brand Strategies.

An avid listener, Marianna Marcucci believes that change can only come from exchanging ideas and opinions. Always striving to find unexplored connections between people to create new communities, Marianna focuses on helping them develop projects linked to the world of culture and tourism while seeking fresh opportunities for communication. Over the past years, she has concentrated on the possibilities offered by the web linked to the travel, art and culture industries. In this context, she co-founded “Invasioni Digitali” (Digital Invasions), a bottom-up initiative created in Italy in 2013. Invasioni Digitali aims to promote the value of and engagement with local cultural heritage. Its goal is to disseminate knowledge highlighting local beauty and history by using the power of internet and social media. The claim of the 2017 edition is “Culture without borders”. Marianna believes that as never before it is necessary to focus our attention on the differences that make us the individuals we are. Differences, which society instead often stifles and represses. Marianna Marcucci completed her Degree in Pharmacy knowing that her future would develop inside a laboratory but not a pharmaceutical one. From a very early stage, she began working in tourism and attended several professional development courses to satisfy her boundless curiosity while improving her knowledge and understanding of the industry. Diversity. Change. Innovation. Added-value creation. Future. These are the drivers of Marianna’s motivation. What inspires her to work every day to build the future believing, as she does that through culture and communication it is possible to make society and the world better. Empowerment through collaboration, in business and in life, is the key to success.

Her motto: “A project is what moves you to happiness”. Born in Western Italy in 1970, curious and voracious of images like a digital camera, Barbara is The Project Player, a qualified trainer and leadership coach, with a specific talent “from vision to action”. She helps people and organizationsto define strategies and implement them, by adopting a twofold perspective: the gender approach and the international vision. After 20 and more years working both at the local and international level, she believes that at the heart of every innovation there are the talents of people, and that talents are the result of places, relationships, and personal experiences.She has been in the boards of national and international associations lobbying for the empowerment of women.Creative thinking is embedded in her coaching and training style. She is now passionately working to address girls and help them fully exploit their talents.