In the whirlwind of the last few months full of events and presentations I was lucky enough to meet, almost by chance, a young company to.do.lab, a communication agency that deals with marketing, web marketing and web design, graphic design, visual products and services (video, photo and audio), consultancy, socials, creation of Apps. In a nutshell, it is a laboratory of ideas that experiences creativity and planning at 360 degrees by proposing a complete response to customer needs and finding for them the targeted and better suited solutions.
Furthermore, to.do.lab also gave birth to To Do Brand , the all-Italian fashion marketplace . It is a website dedicated to e-commerce, a multi-brand showcase , an online store that promotes emerging Italian brands to an international audience. For Christmas I had the opportunity to browse and test this platform by creating my very personal wishlist.
Obviously any company is above all made up of people. to.do.lab is a team of young people who won me over with their enthusiasm, positive spirit, energy, ideas, personality and professionalism. Meeting and interviewing them was like a breath of fresh air, fresh and engaging.
We met in their spacious office which is also the production studio and we started talking with Andrea Russo and Rosa Catapano about the To Do Brand project.
We met in their spacious office which is also the production studio and we started talking with Andrea Russo and Rosa Catapano about the To Do Brand project.
When was it launched?
Andrea : we've been working on it for more than a year, because a marketplace doesn't arise overnight, especially if done well. In June 2016 we went online after which we did a restyling like any project that launches. The more time passes, the more you adjust your shot. We have now arrived at the final version. I say "definitive" in quotation marks because we are always being updated anyway.
To Do Brand is the offspring of to.do.lab, created and edited entirely by us, from the graphic part to the programming part. And soon there will also be the app. We have carved out a slice of the market by orienting ourselves towards emerging or totally new brands, Made in Italy, which offer quality products. To Do Brand allows emerging brands to sell online, whether or not they have their own e-commerce. Each brand can manage their account, the quantity of products to put on sale, or entrust everything to us if they can't follow it up. The important fact is that we offer advantageous rates for payments and shipments by dealing with large volumes. For an emerging brand that works alone it would be difficult to bear the management costs.
Pink : many brands, especially young ones, rather than looking for stores on the shopping streets, look for online stores because they have a lower cost and lower risk.
Andrea : Now we have more or less fifty brands. For the moment there is fashion, for men, women and children, clothing and accessories. In addition to emerging companies, we plan to add the designer area as well, with slightly stronger companies. But always with niche and sought-after products, which you may not find on other platforms, to maintain the To Do Brand line.
I am one of those who still prefer classic shopping, in stores. Give me at least one reason why one should prefer online shopping?
Pink : to avoid stress and traffic in the city center and transport strikes. There are no time problems.
Andrea : there are no seasonal problems online, you can find the T-shirt or swimsuit even in January. And then for a matter of convenience and time. The shipment arrives directly at your home within 24/48 hours.
What if it doesn't suit me?
Andrea : if it doesn't suit you, you have the right to return within 14 days, you can send the product back and it will be changed to you.
Rosa : and there is still customer service, active 24 hours a day, to contact in case of any doubts.
Do you also ship abroad?
Andrea : yes, we ship all over the world, even to Russia.
At this point Gerardo Catapano joins us and we talk about the to.do.lab.
Tell me about your business.
Gerardo : to.to.lab has existed for 3 years, it was born as a creative laboratory , as a point in which to find the right solutions for managing the image of one's brand, of one's company. It comes from my personal journey as a freelancer, experiences and collaborations with other agencies. I managed freelance in my own way, I faced it in synchronizing and coordinating different resources: photography, video, graphics, web. And this led me to want to create a single point taking responsibility for managing all these aspects.
It was born as a single point, unlike traditional agencies, where you can manage all the things you need to create an image, from the web, from social networks, from graphics and the creation of graphic materials for publications, from management, ideation and video production , photos, all the audiovisual part. With both internal resources and external resources. Let's go as far as web apps.
I come from a traditional education, in economics, to then move on to brand management studies at the European Institute of Design in Rome. So we always start from the analysis of the brand, of the company, up to the feasibility study to transform the analysis into strategy. We position the brand online and offline, we create communication campaigns by taking advantage of the opportunity to produce all materials internally.
Did you have to overcome many obstacles and difficulties starting your business?
The objective difficulty in organizing the work well is in being able to prepare an adequate offer for the reference public. I say with extreme sincerity up to now there have been no difficulties, on the contrary we are tripling the numbers and dimensions and this is pleasing. In short, we are on a growing path.
This is very important, especially today when we continue to talk about the crisis and problems.
From the point of view of communication, which has certainly been affected, I think that the crisis is not a general situation. The crisis is nothing more than a change in the traditional dynamics of everyday life and business. You can ride and overcome this state of crisis only by changing the way you react to everyday life.
I just turned 30 and have spent the last 12 years in communication. What has changed? The way of dealing with it and of using communication tools has changed. We have gone from offline communication to digital communication. We have moved on to the brand that communicates, to the friendly brand. It is necessary to interact, really communicate. Brand must dialogue and have measurable and testable reactions with modern tools.
Do you have a preference between the sectors you work with or do you work with all?
Our main sector which then led us to enter e-commerce and therefore to found To Do Brand, is the fashion sector. But we follow more or less all sectors.
Another interesting part we work with, even if perhaps more in previous years, before the EXPO, is food. We followed the launch of 3 street food franchises.
We also follow the training sectors, we work with 2 academies, hotels and accommodation facilities. In addition to the fact that we also provide support as a ghost agency for communication projects for very important companies.
How many are you now?
We are currently 6 people. Among other things very young, the average age of 25 years. We all have different skills. In addition to our team, we open up space for many external collaborations which for the period of support of the brand become almost internal. We have ample space to welcome those who collaborate on the project, to be able to follow it in the best possible way.
However, the main thing we want to communicate is that our doors are open to everyone, including freelancers and young people. On the contrary, we have scheduled meetings on the subject for young operators in the sector with a possible inclusion in the workforce that acts as an intermediary for the work we do for the companies we follow.
We do not have an online application option, but we evaluate the many CVs that arrive by e-mail. I always say that the creative person is not only someone who knows how to do graphics or write but also someone who knows how to present himself. He must be not only creative, but also resourceful.
A few words about your projects in the pipeline and collaborations?
Here is one of our collaborations: we are sponsors and partners of a web-series called "Prime donne" produced by Infinity, Mediaset and dispàrte, a young Roman production house, with several emerging and non-emerging Italian actresses, which won a award at the Lucca Film Festival and was financed by Infinity for 50% of the total budget. This series will start from the web, then it will obviously also be present on Infinity and who knows maybe even directly on Mediaset. We have supported this project, also as a sponsor. In addition, for the crowdfinding campaign promoted by Infinity, we have made available vouchers of the same value as what was donated to all donors for the campaign. This with To Do Brand.
As to.do.lab, in the last period we have been starting collaborations for product placement for brand promotion. For example, we work with RM913 , a brand of accessories, in particular men's / women's watches made in Italy. Each watch is associated with an Italian city. We have followed the entire project for this brand: the study of the brand, the target, the market analyzes up to the creation of online and offline positioning strategies. And now there's an important spring campaign in the pipeline that will present the new production model.
What do you like about your job?
I entered this sector when I was 18 and I'm lucky because I've turned my passion into a job, which perhaps sounds like a cliché, but it's true. I started from graphics, photos and videos, then my role became more managerial and resource management but when it's possible I go back to working personally, especially for photos and videos, precisely because there is a personal passion behind it. And I know that this thing is not always possible to combine.
Rosa : I agree with what Gerardo said, that is, my work is my greatest passion, a passion that I have inherited, that I have grown and cultivated through studies and work experience.
Andrea : for me maybe it's a little different, I really like interacting with people since I was a child, the more I'm in contact with people the better I am, so much so that now my job is the relationship with customers.
Ours is a continuous job that often involves us full-time, but this is compensated by the fact that work is a passion and therefore it doesn't weigh even at such a fast pace or in non-working moments. Maybe you think about a promotion campaign but you don't find the idea in front of the computer but for example during a dinner noticing a simple movement of someone sitting at another table.
Your relationship with Rome?
Gerardo and Rosa : we are from Naples but we have been living in Rome for several years. Andrea instead is from Villa Adriana very close to Rome.
Gerardo : I personally had Rome in mind as a wish since I was a child, moving here was obviously not a coincidence but I like to say that we chose each other!
Rosa : certainly we miss Naples but the two cities are so close that it is easy to move from one city to another, when we are here we miss Naples but when we are in Naples we miss Rome.
Any addresses or favorite places in Rome?
Andrea : I'm in love with Trinità dei Monti, especially the low wall overlooking the staircase.
Gerardo : I like the Pincio, maybe I'll be more romantic (he says laughing ed).
Rosa : I also add Ponte Milvio.
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