New campaign aims to boost footwear sector
Having recently reported more positive results for the footwear sector in the first half of 2007 after “a difficult three years”, the National Association of Italian Footwear Manufacturers (ANCI) is hoping to again raise the global market’s awareness of Italian-made shoes with a new campaign launched this month.
Called ‘Golden Italy’ the new campaign has been designed to promote the ‘Made in Italy’ label both nationally and internationally in order to raise consumers’ awareness of where their footwear is produced, and, according to ANCI, “enforce the concept of the made in Italy marking as a guarantee for excellence in manufacture and creativity”.
Overall the Italian footwear sector does appear to be recovering, exporting 178.5 million pairs of shoes worth €4.805 billion in the first eight months of 2007, up by some five million pairs compared with the same period of 2006, while leather shoe exports increased a significant 8.5% in value year-on-year. However, due to continued structural problems within the industry, the current global economic uncertainty and ongoing competition from lower-priced Asian manufacturers, ANCI remains far from confident about the future, hence the launch of the new campaign to try to secure the country’s position in the global market.
