Manufacturing firms are asked to renovate their offering through a more explicit investment in marketing as the key function able to support interactive relationships with customers as well as symbolic innovation. From an empirical point of view there are few studies focusing on the marketing strategies of Italian firms, by coupling the perspective of products, design and distribution strategies in the framework of the internationalization. The paper develops an empirical analysis of communication strategies of small and medium firms in the made in Italy industries, through a quantitative survey of about 400 firms operating in final markets.
