Would Italian entries do as well if they represented San Marino?

I’ve just seen this theory come up a lot over the years, and I watched an interesting interview yesterday where this sentiment was repeated. And I do think it’s an interesting question.

San Marino is basically Italy but probably doesn’t carry the same associations as Italy at all cause people haven’t heard a lot about them. Therefore it seems like the most obvious option when raising this matter, and very interesting considering Italy’s one of the most successful countries and San Marino one of the least