Inside Costa’s Brand Strategy: Francesco Muglia and Matteo Rinaldi Reveal How to Scale Without Losing Soul
Costa Cruises ship sailing across the Mediterranean, symbolizing the balance between global scale and local soul explored in the article by Francesco Muglia and Matteo Rinaldi.
Francesco Muglia, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Costa Cruises, co-author of One Brand, Many Seas.
Matteo Rinaldi, co-founder of Human Centric Group, adjunct professor at Luiss Business School, and author of two best-selling marketing books.
PESTEL framework visualized with six core dimensions—Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal—used to assess external market factors. Source: springworks.ch
Costa Cruises’ global CCO Francesco Muglia and strategist Matteo Rinaldi share the mindset and methods global brands can learn from the cruise industry.
We don’t just sail across seas, we navigate across cultures. That is what today’s global brands must do.”
LONDON, GREATER LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, October 14, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- What can global marketers learn from a cruise ship? Quite a lot, according to a new article co-authored by Francesco Muglia, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Costa Cruises, and Matteo Rinaldi, Adjunct Professor at Luiss Business School and Co-Founder of the boutique branding consultancy Human Centric Group.— Francesco Muglia
The article, titled “One Brand, Many Seas: Lessons from Costa on Going Global with a Local Soul”, explores how the cruise industry, a rare ecosystem blending hospitality, retail, tourism, entertainment, and transportation, offers a strategic blueprint for any business aiming to expand across borders without diluting brand identity.
"We don’t just sail across seas. We navigate across cultures. That’s what today’s global brands must do." Francesco Muglia, Costa Cruises.
Drawing on Costa’s vast experience with multicultural passengers and multichannel source markets, the authors unpack three powerful principles that marketers and executives across industries can apply:
1. Choose Your Markets. Don’t Let Them Choose You.
In most industries, expansion strategies rely on frameworks like PESTEL. But for Costa, where capacity is fixed and ships are booked years in advance, market prioritization means choosing where to win, not just where to grow. Muglia and Rinaldi describe how Costa blends macro-tourism data with brand fit and operational feasibility to decide where to invest next, often reallocating capacity from one market to another for better yield.
2. One Brand, Many Faces.
Passengers from Italy, France, Germany, and Spain may share the same ship, but their expectations and habits diverge wildly. The article explains how Costa builds a consistent brand backbone while adapting local expressions with surgical precision. From show programming and dinner times to crew languages and boutique assortments, each detail is fine-tuned. In markets where cultural preferences can’t coexist onboard, Costa even dedicates entire ships or itineraries to preserve a coherent experience.
3. Don’t React to Change. Lead It.
The article argues that long-term brand strength comes from anticipating transformation, not chasing it. Whether it’s adapting to shorter vacation formats, leveraging AI for personalization, or embedding circular sustainability practices onboard, Costa sees innovation not as a response but as a requirement. If you wait until change becomes urgent, you are already late.
A Model for Other Industries
From FMCG to luxury, retail to travel, the insights offered in One Brand, Many Seas position Costa as a unique lens through which to view modern brand strategy. "Cruising may happen at sea," Rinaldi notes, "but the challenges and solutions apply everywhere: orchestration over standardization, relevance over reach."
The full article is now available on the Human Centric Group website and is already being discussed by branding and marketing leaders across sectors. With Muglia’s data-driven, culturally attuned leadership and Rinaldi’s global strategy experience, the piece offers not just a case study but a compelling playbook for global brand growth in a fragmented world.
About The Authors
Francesco Muglia is the Senior Vice President and Global Chief Commercial Officer at Costa Cruises, where he also serves on the Board. With a career spanning consulting and leadership roles at Danone and Costa, Francesco has driven the company’s global commercial transformation through data-driven, customer-centric, and AI-powered strategies. He holds degrees in Marketing & Sales Management, Literature & Philosophy, and Organ & Composition (Conservatory).
Matteo Rinaldi is a Senior Marketing Strategy Consultant and Co-Founder of Human Centric Group, with global experience driving double-digit growth for brands like Danone, Carlsberg, Revlon, PepsiCo, and Visa. Having worked across multiple continents, he specializes in leveraging cultural insights for impactful brand strategies. A passionate educator, Matteo teaches marketing worldwide, shaping future industry leaders. Previously, he worked with L’Oréal and Coca-Cola HBC. He is also a best-selling author in marketing.
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