The story we are about to tell is common to all those parts of the world where places become strategically important once they put ideas, people, and technologies in motion. From America to Italy, this is how districts, once local, become international. That’s what happened with the Sellalab centers, which are turning 10 years old and describing a new way towards Open Innovation.
We live in a world racing ahead at increasing speed compared to the past, and that often prevents us from understanding and decoding new phenomena. Yet we need to take a snapshot of what is happening, also starting from figures and the way they are represented. Welcome to our new longform, which is a multimedia edition. Indeed, this is the first multimedia data storytelling longform. Its in-depth content is enriched with structured numbers and includes maps, charts, and interactive visuals. A series of special issues will be released throughout the year, alternating with the traditional ones, which will give center stage to the figures by transforming them into engaging stories. After all, numbers have the power to change the destiny of every person and every organization, which of course is made up of people. This is why data storytelling is actually able to make sense of things. We hope you enjoy reading and watching it.
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How can a simple ice cream become a role model in the business world while making an impact on the area in which it is produced? And how does a challenger company manage in just a few years to outperform its competitors, and overtake long-established industry giants? And again, how does it achieve this success starting in an area that is cut off from metropolitan innovation hubs?
To answer this question, we fly to the United States and 'meet' Ben & Jerry's, a brand of ice cream sold in tubs that is now well known in the US market and that in just a few years has triumphed over its competitors. “Ultimately, the ingredients to do things properly are always the same. You have to start from the people, both inside and outside the company, so employees and customers. And then you have to be obsessive about raw materials, be painstakingly concerned with details, and have a visceral love for your land and the community in which you were born and live.” Easier said than done.
Yet this is the winning formula shared by two lifelong friends, two hippies who were involved in anti-war campaigns in the 1970s during the invasion of Vietnam and who in 1978 in a garage of a suburban town in the United States decided to start up a business together, but to do so in a new way. From that rented garage where they began making ice cream, in three years they found themselves on the cover of Time magazine and in fifteen years - in the mid-1990s - they managed to generate $150 million in sales, outperforming the market leader of the time, Häagen Dazs. But let's proceed in order. It all began in Vermont, a mountainous state north of Boston. Having taken a $5 course held by Penn State and an initial investment of $12,000 ($4,000 of which they borrowed), Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield open their first ice cream shop. They did so far from the glamorous downtown streets in a small refurbished gas station in Burlington, a town with a population of just over forty thousand in Chittenden County. We find ourselves 72 kilometers south of the Canadian border and 151 kilometers south of Montréal. In short, an all-American ice cream was born in a geographical location which - weather-wise - is not all that inviting, marked by bitterly cold winters and continental summers. Yet, one can make a difference even in harsh conditions. All it takes is to put the values of a community into play. Over the years, the two friends and business partners expanded to become one of America's largest tub ice cream companies. And over time, the relationship with the local area continued to foster that initial spark of enthusiasm. Since its origins, Ben & Jerry's has had a deep - almost visceral - connection to Vermont. The State has always had a thriving dairy industry that has been protected from being dismantled thanks to a series of state laws. And the same goes for the other signature industry: forestry. The state and nonprofit organizations actively encourage regrowth and careful management of forested areas - more than 78% of the State is covered by woodlands compared to 37% in 1880, when sheep farming was at its peak and large expanses of land were cleared for grazing. This land-conscious attitude has been embodied by Ben & Jerry's, which from the very beginning has used only locally sourced products for its ice cream, committing to relationships with regional producers to source raw materials. It also embodied a sense of attention towards the land and a sustainable economic model specific to Vermont.
