Plena Education is a Educational and Creative Hub which offers students the opportunity to experience firsthand the world of Italian culture and creativity through the Study of disciplines such as Art, Fashion, Design, Music, Food & Hospitality Management, Language Mediation, Audiovisual & Multimedia Production, and Gaming, in the country that represents the hub of excellence in these fields. In fact, Plena Education offers a unique opportunity for students, especially those from abroad, to study in an international setting as part of an integrated and organic program organized in collaboration with their home schools.
The Group now has more than 4,000 students enrolled, For a turnover of more than 24 million euros and consists of seven realities distributed throughout the Italian territory: Ferrari Fashion School - Milan; RUFA - Rome and Milan; SPD Polytechnic School of Design - Milan; Saint Louis College of Music - Rome and Milan; CIELS Group - Brescia, Padua, Bologna, Palermo; MADE - Syracuse and CAST - Brescia.
The proposed educational offerings ranges from Design, to the Fine Arts, passing through the Liberal Arts, the Music, the Language mediation and finally the Food & Hospitality Management.
Plena's goal is to create a training ecosystem capable of offering innovative and constantly updated curricula to ensure that students acquire knowledge and skills that are highly expendable in the labor market, both nationally and internationally.
To consolidate its notoriety in the Italian territory before aiming for international expansion, Plena Education turned to Disclosers.
WHY THEY APPROACHED US: THE GOALS
The collaboration between Disclosers and Plena Education began in late 2023 with The desire to increase the Group's reputation and positioning within the Italian training market, through communication that would enhance, on the one hand, the face of the organization, in its complexity, and on the other hand, the individual initiatives of the training realities of which it is composed.
The primary goal of our press office activities. was therefore to intercept a wide and varied range of media outlets: from national and local newspapers, to magazines specializing in the fields of design, fashion, music, cooking, etc., and of journalists specializing in the topics of education, work and the various disciplines related to art, culture and creativity.
The team created to support Plena in achieving its goals, consisting of Isabella Castelli, Alice Maserati, and Chiara Urzino aimed to obtain relevant and ongoing media coverage including through proposals for interviews on topical issues with teachers and influential people within the Group and invitations to events and initiatives organized by schools.
This approach made it possible to enhance not only the institutional identity of the Group, but also its "human" and everyday component, making the narrative more accessible.
The ability to Match corporate strategies with editorial content anchored in current events and concrete experience, has been a strength in PR activity.
THE PR & MEDIA RELATIONS STRATEGY
The strategy developed for Plena Education moved on three parallel tracks aimed at maximizing the number of relevant and consistent publications (articles, interviews, reports, in-depth analysis), with the aim of positioning and establishing the group among the leading players in the field of humanities education, in Italy.
Upstream of the strategy, an in-depth analysis phase was conducted on the current positioning of the Group and its schools in the Italian media landscape, a useful step to map opportunities and narrative gaps. This made it possible to identify the most promising thematic strands to be explored, also in relation to industry trends and the editorial calendars of the main newspapers.
- A corporate narrative line focused on the Group: we have, for example, produced growth press releases, in which we recounted all the Group's achievements over the past year both at the economic level and with regard to the updating of the educational proposal, the acquisition of new schools, new partnerships, goals and forecasts for the year to come, so that the company's growth and solidity could be perceived. Also in this vein are press releases about new appointments and chair turns at the top of Plena Education or its member higher education academies, new hires and the entry of new schools within the group.
- An in-depth line on individual schools: parallel to the corporate activity related to the Group, we carried out PR activity referring to the programs and initiatives of individual schools, such as announcing events or initiatives organized by the institutes, open days and launches of new courses. In this case, we have tried to make the communication as less self-referential and promotional as possible, incorporating elements of public utility, placing the news in topical scenarios with supporting contextual data.
- An informative line, related to current issues: the third strand that we went through, which ties in with the second, is aimed at promoting the excellence of individual schools, focusing on analyses and visions regarding a specific area of expertise, tying in with current issues and facts. Some of the themes that have been addressed are, for example, future jobs in the fashion industry, Gen Z's passion for Crime, or even the Future of Design and the importance of cuisine and tourism for Italy.
The work on content has always been based on the idea that each news story or cue could be declined in different ways depending on the perspective from which it was told: hence the decision to work on different formats and registers (interviews, scenario articles, expert opinions) to ensure broader and longer-lasting coverage.
To support the three identified strategic lines, we also adopted a targeted editorial approach based on reverse media analysis. Specifically, in order to maximize the relevance of editorial proposals, we started by identifying the newspaper or type of journalist to be involved-whether lifestyle magazines, trade publications, or corporate titles-and then studied in depth their language, editorial line, and thematic recurrences.
Only at this point did we construct the communication proposal or press release, adapting tone, slant, and content so that they are perfectly aligned with what that newspaper is used to publishing.
This method allows us to differentiate narratives and intercept very diverse target audiences and journalists, helping to make the PR strategy even more effective and widespread.
RESULTS.
Plena Education's strategy of focusing on cross-cutting content creation has enabled us to address the multiplicity of different schools' areas of interest on the one hand and to generate extensive coverage in the national and trade press and build increasingly strong relationships with journalists on the other.
In addition, the process has fostered greater awareness within the Group with respect to the role of strategic communication, not only as a means of promotion but as a cultural tool capable of generating long-term value, vision and impact.
Our communication strategy has brought many significant results, notable publications include:
https://www.wired.it/article/intelligenza-artificiale-musica-saint-louis
https://www.avvenire.it/economia/pagine/erasmus-l-occupabilita-migliora-con-un-periodo-all-estero
If our approach-which we share through all our channels-the results we achieve, our way of working, and the values that guide us resonate with your brand and the people who work in your organization, contact us.
We work alongside companies to build authentic and lasting media relationships through structured and targeted PR strategies. We can share dozens of case studies to show you concretely the impact of our work.
You can write to us at [email protected]
