«In two years we have never stopped, we have never raised our heads, we have never said to ourselves“ how well we are doing ”. Perhaps only today we realize… ».
Simone Giacomini seems genuinely bewildered by the hype surrounding the Gedi-Stardust operation. And yes that this 36-year-old, who with two other partners has created a media agency practically from nothing that last year, after 18 months of life, already had a turnover of 10 million euros, has shown that he dominates the mechanisms of contemporary communication. We reach him on the phone at the airport, as soon as he has landed from Dubai and is ready to leave for Ibiza: no holidays, just work.
Giacomini, but what is Stardust? An agency, a dealership?
“The idea behind Stardust is that people have become media today. The phenomenon was already underway, but with TikTok thousands of new influencers were born who then landed on other platforms as well. Of course, we also have an agency within us, but what distinguishes Stardust is that we were the first to understand that each person can be a powerful media, capable of influencing the behaviors and habits of an increasingly vast audience “.
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In short, you have filled a void. How did you understand that this was the thing to do?
«For more than ten years, since I was 22, I have been involved in theater: first I was a train driver, then I moved on to production. Six years ago I was at Romics, the comic book fair in Rome, and I saw the boys queuing up for youtubers, while no one came to the theater. I thought, if I want to have a future, I have to change something here ».
Did you create a self-taught startup?
«With me from the beginning there have been the ceo Antonino Maira, who has an economic background, and Fabrizio Ferraguzzo (record company and manager of the Maneskin, ed). We traveled the world to understand if our feelings were right. Do you think that with my wife we were expecting the third child and I had given up everything to do this thing. But the vibrations were very strong, we were not wrong ».
Gedi is not just any investor, he is a publisher. What value can Stardust bring to information?
«Given that ours is an autonomous path, Stardust knows how to amplify traditional media: we have already done it for example with music, reaching a new audience, without taking it away from the radio. We did it with cinema. Why can’t we also do it with information? ».
Partnership between Gedi and Stardust, the innovative media specialized in social media communication
The mechanism by which brands court influencers is clear. But why should a creator choose Stardust instead of going it alone?
«For our method, based on talent. We are able to take micro-influencers with a few thousand followers and make them grow in a healthy way, following them continuously, talking to families. We give them stability: of our 500 influencers, more than half have a guaranteed monthly minimum. When their growth becomes exponential, we have them followed by professionals who come from TV and cinema. At the end of year party of our academy there were 300 boys, you can see their posts on social media, they are in love with our method “.
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It looks like a toy land. Would you wish your three children a future as an influencer?
“I’ll let them decide. The oldest, who is 13, already enjoys doing things: he has 70,000 followers on Instagram, 150,000 on TikTok ».
She is understandably enthusiastic. But isn’t there anything that worries you about the social world?
«These guys have great values, different from ours, often better. But my generation still had family dinners together, street games. They lack this dimension. It is said that they are not informed, that they are not updated, but it is because there is no guide. Perhaps thanks to the union with Gedi we will be able to fill this void ».