The future of digital marketing between industrial innovation and visual creativity: the visit to Emilgroup

21 May 2025

An immersive experience to understand the complexity and richness of contemporary digital marketing. The participants of the Professional Master in Digital Marketing and Communication at Bologna Business School had the opportunity to visit Emilgroup, a leading company in ceramic manufacturing, accompanied by Anastasia Leshchenko, lecturer of the course in Digital Strategy and Business Transformation.

The visit offered a close-up view of two essential dimensions of the company: on one hand, the industrial efficiency of a high-tech production site; on the other, the emotional and communicative power of a carefully curated showroom.

“I believe it was extremely valuable for students to see how technological innovation and visual and aesthetic refinement can coexist and strengthen each other,” said Leshchenko. “The production site demonstrated the efficiency, precision, and scale required to compete in the global market, while the showroom highlighted the brand’s ability to translate the product into emotion, value, and aesthetic vision.” A duality that becomes a concrete lesson: modern marketing must be capable of conveying even the most complex processes through engaging and memorable experiences.

Throughout the day, students also had the opportunity to explore the role of digital platforms and new communication languages, with a particular focus on TikTok and the management of the creator economy by the company.

“I was impressed by how consciously Emilgroup approached TikTok, finding a tone of voice fully aligned with its brand identity,” noted Leshchenko. “They proved that even in B2B, it is possible to activate empathetic, authentic communication strategies that attract attention without sacrificing technical competence.” The use of creators, she added, “breaks the traditional mold of B2B as a purely ‘institutional’ space, turning it into a dialogical arena, made of stories, people, and constantly evolving languages.”

Finally, the direct exchange with Emilgroup’s marketing team gave students a genuine and current perspective on the profession. In a context where the boundaries between strategy, content, technology, and data are increasingly blurred, engaging with professionals working in the field provided a moment of high educational value.

“Students had the chance to truly experience how working in digital marketing today requires cross-functional skills, but also great adaptability,” Leshchenko concluded. “Listening to professionals describe not only their strategies but also their daily challenges allowed them to understand that it’s not just about creating content, but about building relationships, interpreting data, and most of all, reading cultural and technological shifts.”

A perfect synthesis of the BBS approach: transforming theory into concrete experience, cultivating new skills through the dialogue between academia and enterprise, between ideas and reality.