Clare Ferragni is seen on many fronts as a visionary of Italian digital entrepreneurship. There is no doubt that over the years she has been able to seize the opportunities that have come her way, creating new ones and building the empire that her admirers use to showcase her talent. Despite being idolized in this way for her extraordinary entrepreneurial skills, it was embarrassing to see that she was obviously embarrassed to deal with Fiorello’s irreverent video call intervention (on Instagram) on the last night of Sanremo and uses most of the time to teach his uncle Boomer (Amadeus) how to use Instagram. Yes, because from the stage of the Ariston Theater there was excessive and free advertising for Mark Zuckerberg’s social network, which is a real company, without showing it among the sponsors.
Let’s start from the beginning. Ferragni stood on the stage of the Ariston Theater, celebrated with all the trimmings just because of her millions upon millions of followers. Given that basic assumption, the reason why all this time has been dedicated to Instagram seems obvious: to reassure them. However, this has opened up questionable scenarios where someone will inevitably have to question themselves in order to understand if any Terms of Service violations have been committed. In fact, in our country there is a law that prohibits any kind of sponsorship, even tacitly, on a product without a regular contract in place. In any case, all advertising must be regulated.
The prime-time Instagram maxi-advertisement on public television was not reported at all. And the social network giant isn’t among those Business partner the kermesse on par with Costa Crociere, Suzuki and Poltrone e Sofà, who spent several million euros to get their seats at the festival. Much more space has been dedicated to Instagram, diluted in all the episodes and in different moments of the same, without any economic return for Rai: why?
Amadeus went live on Instagram during the live broadcast of the festival, his username was even popped up and repeated multiple times, as was Gianni Morandi’s. Even the conductor entered the theater with the phone in hand while he was live in Zuckerberg’s social network. Given the weight Chiara Ferragni has on the social platform, the idea that it could all be improvised and a mere entertainment clip within the show doesn’t seem plausible.
But there is another aspect that should not be underestimated. A few hours before the Sanremo Festival, a social profile was opened for Amadeus and when it was shown live during the first episode, it already had the blue verification check. Anyone familiar with the authentication mechanism knows that unless you have access to preferred channels, the process is not that fast. In addition, the conductor’s newly opened profile has continued to accumulate 1.8 million followers: Monster numbers that mean great earning opportunities from Instagram’s point of view. The more followers you have and the more your image is featured, the greater the revenue for a promoted post, the advertisement. So that means that Rai has allowed him to promote something for free that could potentially bring him a huge economic return. The same applies to Gianni Morandi, the focus of the gags with Amadeus, which has grown by almost 480,000 followers. All this while business partners paid to have the same advertising, if not less.