Why You Should Consider the Italian Language When Launching International PR Campaigns

Carmelo Cutuli, Of Counsel, Senior Advisor Italy, TransMediaGroup Inc. Despite the recent pandemic crisis, Italy is still the third largest economy in the Eurozone and the eighth largest in the world. Foreign investments are one of the key factors that fuel the growth of the country along with exporting, at a global level, 'made in Italy' quality goods.The Italian language is often neglected by international public relations agencies because it is wrongly considered only spoken in its domestic territory and therefore, when there is no specific interest in its country, it is assumed that English or Spanish contents will in any case reach a considerable part of the Italian population.That's not entirely true because the Italian language is the fourth most taught foreign language in the world and is also an official language spoken in several nations soon after English, Spanish and Chinese.Italian is among the twenty-four official languages of the European Union and enjoys the status of official language in: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Slovenia, Croatia, Eritrea, Argentina, Brazil and others. Descending from the Latin language, is also the most common language of Catholic populations being spoken in the Vatican State and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an ancient Catholic religious order with diplomatic passport.Making your content available in Italian is therefore necessary and useful when launching a worldwide press or marketing campaign as Italian has a 90 million speakers in total, almost 70 millions of whom are native speakers.Localizing and distributing contents in Italian, adds great value to international campaigns because, at very low cost, makes possible to reach an additional audience of nearly 90 million people. Moreover, thousands of Italians around the world, who are often opinion leaders in their communities, would greatly appreciate foreign companies and institutions communicating with them through their mother tongue.