Ceramics of Italy for Responsibility focuses on showroom staff training

(November 2025) | Alongside ceramic manufacturers, distributors and the media, the “I choose responsibility. You should too!” communication campaign is now being introduced to showroom designers and sales staff. Conceived as a rational, objective way of presenting the facts and figures behind the Italian ceramic industry’s longstanding commitment to environmental sustainability and people, the campaign aims to reach all players in the supply chain, particularly showroom staff who represent the most important link in the sales process due to their direct contact with customers.

In today’s showrooms, two professional figures are responsible for interacting with the market and bringing the sales process to completion: sales staff, who deal directly with consumers, and showroom designers, who create the spaces used to display Italian ceramic tiles and bathroom furnishings. The most effective way of reaching staff working at the thousands of sales outlets across Italy was to collaborate with the people who run training programmes targeted at these professionals. This idea led to a partnership with Veronica Verona and Riccardo Fiorina, two leading figures in their respective fields who have been engaged as ambassadors of “Ceramics of Italy for Responsibility” in Italy.

Veronica Verona, founder of the Accademia dello Show Room, led a hybrid event last April at the Confindustria Ceramica headquarters focusing on in-store behaviour and dynamics and the choice of the most effective campaign tools. Organised in collaboration with Confindustria Ceramica’s Promotional Activities Commission, the event led to the creation of two video tutorials designed specifically for people whose work brings them into direct contact with the public. The first, entitled A different narrative to price, explains how to progress beyond the use of discounts as a sales tool, while the second, How to promote the value of Italian ceramic products, discusses the best way to use the “Ceramics of Italy for Responsibility toolbox” according to the profiles of contemporary Italian consumers.

The training programme entitled “Il progettista sistemico”(“The Systemic Designer”) created by Riccardo Fiorina is aimed at the equally important figure of showroom designers. Not so long ago, visitors entering a showroom would have been content to view products and imagine the final result for themselves. Today, even customers with the simplest requests are provided with three-dimensional designs created using digital rendering technologies, and in some cases they even have the opportunity to visualise their future homes using augmented reality headsets.

These training courses have helped to create a constantly expanding professional network while raising awareness of the Italian ceramic industry’s values and principles of responsibility. Veronica Verona’s basic and advanced courses entitled “Rito di Vendita” (“The Sales Ritual”) have attracted more than 2,000 participants, while several hundred architects, surveyors, technologists and industrial engineers have taken part in Riccardo Fiorina’s accredited online courses.

Following their launch in Italy, the courses will continue to evolve and will also serve as a valuable testing ground before “Ceramics of Italy for Responsibility” is introduced to European markets.