The new humanistic model that revolutionizes doing business and generates cultural value for the community
In the contemporary ecosystem dominated by symbolic hyperproduction, attention has become an inflated currency. Impression, reach, engagement: necessary metrics, but increasingly insufficient.
In this scenario, the true competitive differential is not visibility. It is relevance. The etymology of the term – relevare, “to lift”, “to bring out” – offers us a powerful key: it is relevant what emerges from the noise, what has weight in the present and maintains value over time. Not what appears, but what impacts. Not what is viral, but what remains.
For a brand, relevance does not coincide with immediate profit. It is a qualitative category before being quantitative: it concerns the ability to generate significant and lasting value, for itself and for the community. And it is here that the dialogue between art and business becomes strategic.
Beyond visibility: an operational definition of relevance
In the economic and cultural context, we can define relevance as the ability of a project, an organization, or a brand to generate significant and lasting value for itself and for the community, beyond the short cycle of attention and immediate profit.
The relevance is measurable through four verifiable criteria:
- Real human impact
Does it tangibly improve people’s lives? Does it produce well-being, awareness, growth? - Connection with the historical present
Is it consistent with the tensions and transformations of contemporaneity, or is it anachronistic? - Prospective responsibility
Does it take into account future consequences? Does it integrate an intergenerational (eco-social) vision? - Coherence between intention and action
Is there alignment between the declared mission and real behavior?
From the personal dimension to the economic dimension
The principle of relevance arises from a radical question: what really matters?
On the individual level, relevance is linked to authenticity. It ideally recalls the Socratic “know yourself”: what is consistent with one’s own nature generates meaning and produces a non-ephemeral happiness.
But in the professional field, the issue broadens. An economic activity cannot be self-referential. Its legitimacy does not derive solely from the ability to generate profit, but from the ability to generate economic value along with human, social, cultural, or environmental value.
Profit remains a condition of sustainability. But it cannot be the only goal. Here, art offers a crucial lesson: symbolic value precedes and guides economic value. Imagination creates market. Culture builds capital.
The enterprise as a cultural agent
Every brand is, consciously or not, a producer of culture. It does not only distribute goods or services: it distributes languages, behavior models, worldviews. It influences collective imaginaries. It shapes desires. The Principle of Relevance invites the company to assume this symbolic responsibility in a structural way.
It means integrating humanistic skills – art, philosophy, literature, sciences – not as decorative or episodic operations, but as a permanent decision-making infrastructure. It means equipping oneself with a clear intentionality, where mission and vision are not slogans, but real criteria for choice.
In this sense, the dialogue with the thought of Hans Jonas on intergenerational responsibility becomes relevant: every decision must be effective in the present and sustainable in the future. It is not enough to ask oneself “does it work now?”. One must ask “does it strengthen or weaken tomorrow?”.
Structural anticonformism: against the monoculture of thought
Among the fundamentals of relevance, there is an element often underestimated in contemporary management: structural nonconformity. A relevant brand does not flatten itself on purely algorithmic logics, opportunistic trends, or dominant ideologies. It does not chase every fashion out of fear of losing attention.
Instead, cultivate divergent thinking and a plurality of perspectives, integrating critical views capable of questioning the obvious. Nonconformity, in this sense, is neither sterile provocation nor artificial positioning. It is critical discipline. It is the ability to avoid the “monoculture of thought” that impoverishes both culture and the market.
This is where art returns to being a strategic infrastructure: the artist, by definition, destabilizes, questions, opens up possibilities. Integrating this stance into a company means strengthening the capacity for authentic and non-imitative innovation.
Relevant communication: from H2H to relational depth
The communication of a relevant brand is not based on the saturation of attention. It does not solely pursue vanity metrics. It favors depth over quantity, quality over frequency, relationship over performance.
It is H2H – human to human – before it is B2C or B2B.
In a world that rewards hyper-exposure, relevance introduces a discipline: not everything must be produced, not everything must be communicated, not everything must be amplified. Subtraction becomes a strategic method. “Less is more” is not minimalist aesthetics, but a concentration of symbolic capital on what truly matters.
A framework for the brand: from theory to action
Applying the Principle of Relevance means initiating a process of structural realignment.
The first step is a audit di coerenza: verify the alignment between the declared mission, operational practices, and communication. Where there is a gap, noise is generated.
Follows the mapping of the real impact: on people, on communities, on the environment, on culture. Without this awareness, every narrative risks being performative.
Then comes the most complex part: eliminate the superfluous. Redundant products, opportunistic initiatives, inflated communication. Reducing the noise means increasing the specific weight of what remains.
The structural integration of artistic and humanistic skills completes the picture. Not occasional campaigns, but permanent processes of critical contamination.
Finally, redefine the very concept of success: alongside quantitative metrics, include qualitative indicators of trust, relational depth, reputational capital, and cultural value generated.
Art, culture, and business: a necessary realignment
The Principle of Relevance is not a moral code. It is a criterion for strategic orientation. It does not impose a uniform ethic, but requires consistency, real impact, and forward-looking responsibility.
It is a response to the society of scattered attention. It is an antidote to performative superficiality. For businesses, it represents a lever of competitiveness in the long term. For art, it is an opportunity for conscious entrepreneurialization, capable of making a concrete impact on economic systems.
When art, culture, and business meet on this ground, they do not only produce more sophisticated communication. They produce more solid value. And, above all, they produce future.
Media artist active since 2013, with over 80 exhibitions worldwide. His works are part of the catalogue of Heure Exquise!, distributor of the audiovisual collections of the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. He has been
selected for major events and exhibitions, including the XVI Videoart Yearbook curated by art critic Renato Barilli, the Collettiva Giovani Artisti (Young Artists Collective) of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and The Wrong Biennale, winning numerous awards and recognitions over the years.
His artistic research has also been included in the book “L’arte del XXI secolo. Temi, linguaggi, artisti” (21st Century Art: Themes, Languages, Artists) by Viviana Vannucci, lecturer and international curator.
Alongside his artistic activity, he works as an art director in the field of multimedia communication. Moving between art and communication, he coined the term “Artivator” to define a new
role for the artist: cultural activator for brands, territories and realities outside the art system. He is also the author of the literary manifesto of Metaluddismo, published in the aperiodical Il Foglio Clandestino.
