If you don't say it, your customer can't know it

The controversy over Pane di Altamura, and a reflection on awareness, reputation, knowledge and mediocrity in communication.

At Rocket, we've used a very simple phrase for years: if you don't say it, your customer can't know it.

It sounds obvious, but a large share of the communication problems I come across begin exactly here. The entrepreneur has known the business for twenty years: they know why they use a particular raw material, why they chose one process over another, why their product costs more than a competitor's and what problems they had to solve to arrive at the product they sell. Then they open Instagram and write “quality, passion, tradition.” And they expect the customer to infer everything else.

Over the past few days, Pane di Altamura has brought that phrase back to mind more than once.

Over the past few days, a heated controversy has grown around Pane di Altamura. Sonia Ricci, editor-in-chief of Gambero Rosso, comes to Altamura, buys three loaves from three different bakeries, tastes them over two days and publishes a very harsh assessment: she finds them disappointing and calls Pane di Altamura “overrated.” She also explains what she didn't like: a very dense crumb, a fermentation aroma she found too pronounced, and a texture that was already hard and rubbery the following day. She then says she greatly enjoyed the bread of another Altamura baker who chose not to produce Pane di Altamura DOP and that, after meeting him, she began asking questions about flours, sourdough starter, fermentation, volume and time.

As I write this, the full investigation has not yet been published. I don't know what conclusions it will reach, and that isn't even what interests me right now.

What interests me is what happened before.

Because that one post was enough to put not so much Pane di Altamura itself under a sudden stress test, but the entire system of knowledge, beliefs and narratives we have built around it.

A lot of reputation. But how much knowledge?

For a day I read comments, replies, articles and statements from people defending Pane di Altamura and from others who seemed to have been waiting for the chance to tear it down.

On one side, the same arguments kept returning: tradition, Horace, the DOP, the millions of people who eat it, doubts about whether the loaves tasted were really certified. On the other came Canadian flour, “it's not what it used to be,” “it's true, it goes hard,” or the inevitable Pane di Matera, Pane di Genzano or bread from some other city that was supposedly the truly good one.

There were, of course, thoughtful contributions in the middle. But the overall impression I came away with was something else: an astonishing number of people held extremely strong positions and had very few tools with which to support them.

I don't mean to conclude from this that people from Altamura don't know their own bread. That would be exactly the kind of generalization I'm criticizing. A sample of social-media comments does not measure a city's food culture.

But a crisis, even a small and slightly grotesque one like this, does reveal which arguments a community can retrieve immediately when it feels that something it values has been attacked.

And this is where, at least for me, the issue stops being gastronomic and becomes marketing.

Generalization, deletion, distortion: how a complex product gets compressed

I've already written about this in another article. Every time we communicate a complex reality, we are forced to compress it. We generalize, we delete information, we build connections between what remains. It's inevitable: without doing this, we probably couldn't even tell each other what we did last night.

The problem begins when we forget that this simplified representation is not the whole reality.

What happened was a magnificent laboratory. Three loaves become the starting point for talking about Pane di Altamura. A criticism of three tastings becomes, in some people's reactions, an attempt to demolish a tradition. A DOP certification becomes synonymous with absolute sensory quality. Bread that goes stale becomes bad bread. The memory of bread in the 1980s becomes proof that it was better back then. A cultivar becomes healthy. A long fermentation automatically becomes more digestible.

Reality loses pieces, but the message becomes much easier to remember and, above all, to repeat.

It's interesting to apply the same lens to the post that started all of this. “Overrated” is an extraordinarily powerful generalization: three tasting experiences become the starting point for an assessment of the product's entire reputation. At the same time, Ricci tells us precisely what she disliked about those loaves, while she gives us far less sensory detail about the bread she says she liked very much.

That doesn't mean she is hiding anything. It simply means that, as in any act of communication, some information is selected and some is left out.

Narratively, it works very well. We have a strong thesis, a conflict, three disappointing tests, one positive exception and a series of new questions about flour, fermentation, volume, quality and time. Then the answer is deferred to the full investigation.

I want to read it now.

So that communication achieved something extremely valuable: it built attention around what comes next.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's the craft.

What is interesting, though, is the contrast with many of the responses it received: on one side, a professional builds a story that opens up new questions; on the other, all too often, the discussion is closed down with a slogan.

If you don't say it, your customer can't know it. But what if you say it badly?

This brings me back to the phrase I started with. Maybe the problem isn't only what we have failed to tell people about Pane di Altamura. It's also what we have told them badly.

Take an official brochure from the Consortium for the Protection and Promotion of Pane di Altamura DOP. Not an improvised reel by a baker, not an enthusiast's post: material produced specifically to explain the product.

The brochure says that “the first written evidence of this product” dates back to the first century BC and that Horace, in the Satires, called it “the best bread in the world.”

The product specification from which that story is drawn is much more cautious. In the section devoted to proof of origin, it says that the first reference to the place of origin, while not necessarily attributable specifically to Altamura, can certainly be traced to the Murgia area. It is at that point that it cites the famous judgment about the best bread in the world.

It may seem like a detail. To me, it's almost a textbook example.

The specification says: we cannot attribute it to Altamura with certainty, but we can trace it to the Murgia.

The brochure says: this is the first written evidence of this product.

You don't need to invent anything. You only need to remove the caution.

And there they are again: generalization and deletion.

In the same brochure, sourdough starter is directly linked to the product's digestibility and shelf life. The four cultivars Appulo, Arcangelo, Duilio and Simeto are also presented without explaining that the specification requires them to make up at least 80% of the semolina, while allowing other durum-wheat varieties grown in the same area to account for the remainder.

Later, the brochure goes so far as to say that the combination of the DOP elements makes it possible to obtain a product of “the highest quality, unique and inimitable in flavor, taste and color.”

It's promotional communication, of course. But that's exactly the point.

A DOP defines origin, raw material, process and compliance with a specification. It is not a gastronomic competition, and it does not establish that every single loaf is superior in sensory terms to every other bread.

The problem isn't an adjective. The problem begins when complexity is systematically turned into slogans for years. In the end, the public doesn't inherit the specification; it inherits “best in the world,” “highest quality,” “more digestible,” “unique and inimitable.”

Then someone comes along and questions the product, and we are surprised that those are also the words used to defend it.

If the customer repeats a simplification, are we sure it's always their fault?

The miracle grain, the starter that makes bread digestible, and other shortcuts

The problem doesn't end with institutional materials. Just look at how part of the baking world is presented on social media.

I've seen bakers attribute almost miraculous properties to Senatore Cappelli. But Senatore Cappelli is a cultivar of durum wheat. A grain. It may have interesting agronomic, technological and sensory characteristics; turning its name into an automatic synonym for health, well-being or superiority is something else entirely.

The same happens with sourdough starter that supposedly “makes bread easier to digest,” or with long fermentation treated almost like a counter: the more hours pass, the more digestible the product supposedly becomes automatically.

It's an extremely convenient form of communication because it takes a complex phenomenon, removes virtually all the variables and turns it into a simple relationship.

The problem with half-truths is that they work extremely well in marketing. They have enough plausibility to look like expertise and enough simplicity to fit inside a reel.

Then there are older people. And here I want to be clear: I consider oral memory incredibly valuable. An older person can preserve gestures, experiences, techniques and pieces of culture that no product specification could ever capture. But that doesn't mean that putting an older person in front of a camera, perhaps speaking dialect, automatically turns anything they say into a historical or technical source.

Memory is precious. It is not infallible.

And using an older person as a visual shortcut to give authority to a message does not necessarily honor tradition. Sometimes it uses it.

And then there is bread made for the algorithm, not for the story

In other reels, the problem is almost the opposite: very little is said about Pane di Altamura because the bread simply has to become the vehicle for something else.

They cut it open, fill it with meat, pile on melted cheese, bombette and sauces. Then comes the bite, the drip, the close-up.

I have nothing against a sandwich stuffed with bombette and cheese. I'd probably eat it quite happily.

The question is different: is that content actually telling the story of Pane di Altamura, or is it simply using the bread as a backdrop for a format that would work exactly the same way with any other bread?

Those are two different jobs.

If I have a territory, cultivars, farmers, mills, sourdough starter, techniques, shapes, history, evolution and food culture at my disposal, and the only way I can think of to stop someone's thumb is to pour cheese over it, then perhaps I don't have a reach problem.

I have an editorial problem.

Then came the controversy. How did we respond?

This is where things become even more interesting, because it wasn't only residents and bakers who reacted.

The Consortium was right to point out two things: a tasting experience cannot automatically represent an entire designation, and individual preference must be distinguished from compliance with a product specification.

Those are fair points.

But they don't answer the most interesting questions raised by those tastings.

Is a very dense crumb a normal characteristic of Pane di Altamura, or can it indicate a problem? At what point does a very pronounced fermentation aroma become a defect? What should happen to the texture the next day? What does “keeping quality” mean technically and historically? How much can the product vary from one baker to another while remaining compliant with the DOP?

These are the questions that, as a consumer, I would like to hear answered by people who know the product far better than I do.

A regional institutional representative also joined in with an ironic reel: a slice of Pane di Altamura, a raw red prawn — gambero rosso in Italian — Apulian olive oil, and the wordplay, “It's even better with Gambero Rosso.”

As a social-media joke, it works.

As an answer to the questions being raised, it adds exactly zero information about the bread.

Among the other public reactions, I also saw monologues built around history, sacrifice, roots, grandparents, pride in Altamura and the product's sentimental value. Some were clearly sincere. But I kept asking myself the same question: what does any of that have to do with a crumb judged too dense or a fermentation aroma considered excessive?

If someone challenges a technical characteristic and I answer with a memory of my grandfather, I may well move the people listening to me. But I'm answering a different question.

And this is exactly what struck me most: when the product came under pressure, a significant part of the communication chose to react instead of explain.

Precisely because the history of Pane di Altamura is so important, I think it deserves better arguments.

Someone approved that communication: how to choose an agency

It would be far too convenient to blame everything on social media or agencies.

Mediocre content doesn't mysteriously appear on Instagram. Someone chooses the topic, someone writes what is going to be said, someone produces it and, in the end, someone responsible for the product looks at the result and decides it's good enough.

That's why I think businesses also need to learn how to choose their agencies.

Not according to the equally foolish equation that the most expensive agency must necessarily be the best. It isn't.

But if, when choosing who will tell the story of your product, your main question becomes how much it costs per month for four reels, eight posts and a few stories, you're already saying a great deal about what you consider marketing to be.

Before the price, I'd want to know something else. Will that agency study the product? Will it read the specification? Will it check a source before turning a half-truth into a claim? Will it know the difference between what is true and what is merely convenient to communicate? Will it have enough expertise and independence to tell the client, “No, we can't present it this way”?

Because if what you're mainly buying is execution, then in the end that's exactly what you'll get: execution.

And with Pane di Altamura, I've also had the chance to experience this firsthand.

Some time ago I was in talks with one of the DOP producers. I proposed starting with analysis. He wasn't interested in investing in that phase: his reasoning was that we should simply start working and then, if he liked what we were doing, he would continue.

He explained that he basically did the same thing with his own products: he let people taste them and, if they liked them, they came back.

That's a criterion I understand perfectly well when buying a loaf of bread. Much less so when deciding on a strategy.

“I like it” is a perfectly legitimate criterion for choosing a loaf of bread. It's a much more dangerous criterion for choosing marketing.

I'm not telling this story to promote Rocket, which in any case works with a completely different target and business model. I'm telling it because that episode came back to me as I watched what was happening over the past few days.

First we do it. Then we see. If they like it, we keep going.

A few years later, you risk finding yourself with an entire sector communicating in exactly the same way and nobody asking anymore whether it is actually telling anyone anything.

Brands get defended even when they don't ask for it: the New Coke case

What happened in Altamura isn't particularly unusual behavior, either.

Marketing research has studied how communities react when a brand they feel attached to comes under attack. It happens with huge global brands: Apple and Samsung, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Nike and Adidas. When the relationship with a brand also becomes part of identity, criticism of the product can feel like something much more personal.

Coca-Cola received a spectacular demonstration of this in 1985, when it replaced its original formula with New Coke. It had conducted taste tests with nearly 200,000 consumers, and the new formula had performed very well. But those tests had measured taste, not everything Coca-Cola meant to those people. Protests followed, along with thousands of phone calls and consumers stockpiling the old formula.

The product was no longer just a product. It had become identity.

Sound familiar?

Identity can create a community ready to defend you. But it doesn't automatically give that community good arguments with which to do so.

Pane di Altamura has another problem: the reputation belongs to everyone

A geographical designation has another particular feature: no single producer owns the entire reputation of the name they use.

The Volkswagen case is interesting for exactly this reason. After Dieselgate, the reputational damage did not remain confined to the company involved: other German manufacturers also suffered negative effects tied to the shared perception of German cars.

Of course, three loaves that a journalist didn't like have nothing to do with Dieselgate. The comparison would be ridiculous if it were about the seriousness of the event.

I'm interested in the mechanism.

If a tourist walks into a bakery, buys a mediocre product and goes back to Milan saying that “Pane di Altamura is nothing special,” they are unlikely to downgrade only that bakery in their mind. They will have updated their perception of Pane di Altamura.

That's both the beauty and the risk of collective reputation: every producer benefits from what others have built, and every producer can, in their own small way, help wear it down.

That's why having a designation with enormous name recognition should increase the responsibility of the people who sell and communicate it, not reduce it.

Being known is not the same as being well understood

Pane di Altamura has extraordinary reputational capital. It has history, recognition, a strong territorial identity, a European designation and a level of name recognition that many brands spend enormous sums trying to build.

Perhaps that's exactly what allows it to withstand mediocre communication as well.

The product keeps selling, tourists keep looking for it, and its name continues to precede it. And when the result comes anyway, it becomes very easy to confuse the success of the product with the quality of the communication we are building around it.

Until a controversy like this comes along.

And then you suddenly discover that awareness, reputation and knowledge are not the same thing.

“If you don't say it, your customer can't know it” still strikes me as a good rule.

After the past few days, though, I'd add a consequence: if you decide to say it badly, the problem doesn't disappear. The customer will certainly know something. It's just that what they may have learned is a slogan, a half-truth or even something incorrect.

And that's a shame, especially because Pane di Altamura doesn't need any of that.

It has enough true, complex and interesting things to say that it can comfortably do without miraculous claims about digestibility, formulas such as “unique and inimitable,” dripping cheese and sentimental defenses every time someone dares to criticize it.

The point is not to learn how to defend it better from Sonia Ricci.

It's to know it and explain it well enough that you don't need to defend it that way.