Five weeks of luxury marketing in Florence

Next Friday, my 5-week study abroad program studying Luxury Marketing in Florence comes to an end. As I head into the final week, I’ve been reflecting on how much this city has taught me; things a classroom alone never could.

MKT-350 is built around one simple question: what makes luxury, luxury? The answer we kept returning to was the idea of savoir-faire. This is a concept from watchmaker F.P. Journe, based on the mastery, heritage, and human craftsmanship behind a product. Reading about this idea and witnessing it are two very different things.

Over the past 5 weeks, I’ve experienced it firsthand:

1. Touring the Antinori winery, where 26 generations of one family have turned patience and precision into one of the most respected names in wine
2. Learning leatherworking at the Florence School of Leather
3. Crafting perfume and seeing how a master “nose” composes a scent from hundreds of notes
4. Silversmithing, where I created my own silver bracelet
5. Countless museums where beauty and art have been showcased for generations

The thing that stuck with me the most is that the value of these brands doesn’t live in just the product itself. It lives in the thousands of hours of skill behind it. We examined multiple case studies on a range of luxury brands, each making very different products.

Finally, grazie mille to Professor Trinidad Callava, University of Miami Business School, Tim Ferriter, CFA for pushing me to do this, and all my new friends who made this experience unforgettable. Florence, it’s been fun!