We think this ad for Fernet Branca, an Italian amaro or “bitter” made of herbs and spices, that is usually served as a digestif after a meal but may also be served with coffee and espresso or mixed into coffee and espresso drinks.

The text atop the bottle reads, “This could have been an ad for sexy lingerie, but we bought the space first.”  Below the bottle, in smaller type, it says, “Life is Bitter.”

Here at the compound, we love amari or bitters, but recognize that they’re an acquired taste.  In an article in the Atlantic Monthly, Wayne Curtis described the process of learning to enjoy these quintessentially Italian drinks:

Your first sip of Fernet Branca, an Italian liqueur, will be akin to waking up in a foreign country and finding a crowd of people arguing in agitated, thorny voices outside your hotel window. It’s an event that’s at once alarming and slightly thrilling, and leaves you wanting to know more.

You can read the rest of his article here, in which he details a visit to the Fernet Branca factory and describes the drink as “the taste of a time that’s long since passed us by.”  Time is not passing by Fernet Branca’s ad executives, however, who seem to be keeping up with the times just fine.

Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Copenhagen, Denmark
Copywriter: Mikkel Elung-Jensen
Art Director: Claus Collstrup

We wish we’d seen these ad last week, but being still a bit in the Halloween spirit here at the Compound (and being generally charmed by the ads of Esselunga, an Italian supermarket chain, the advertising of which we’ve highlighted before) we thought we’d go ahead and drop these onto your screen despite the fact that Aglioween has already passed us by.

Esselunga’s ad designers showed a tendency to dress food up in funny costumes in 2008, the year that these sweet ‘n savories were released.  Aglioween – an ad in which heads of garlic or aglio have donned witches hats – is just hilarious.  And we love the American Gothic look of the aglio e olio or garlic and oil version below as well.

If we had the space and the funds to install a pool at the Compound, we’d certainly hire Piscine Castiglione to design and install it for us.  We became aware of this company some years ago when we stumbled upon their ultra-alluring ad campaign depicting a couch-pool that made our hearts pound.

Now they’re back at it with a nice piece of ad work by cayenne, an agency in Milan.  One sees little putti or angels of the kind that embellish every baroque church in Italy floating in a chlorinated heaven and holding a sign that says, “Are you sure Paradise is up there?”

Via Ads of the World.

Advertising Agency: cayenne, Milan, Italy
Creative Directors: Giandomenico Puglisi, Stefano Tumiatti
Art Director: Livio Gerosa
Copywriter: Caterina Calabrò
Photographer: Daniele Poli
Published: September 2009

Here at the eCool Compound (which, lately, has been flitting through space and time) we always dig the ad campaigns mounted by Meltin’ Pot.  Last year we showed you their “I Have a Dream” campaign designed by ad guru Armando Testa.  This year, they’ve put Testa to work again and he’s designed three ads seemingly meant to assure us that the comfort and hot looks of Meltin’ Pot jeans can help solve some of the crises currently afflicting our world.

These ads are hanging all over Rome and they’re a bit difficult to work out as you whizz by on the bus or the tram (that’s probably one of the reasons we like them so much).  Above, in an a version labeled “001 Step to a Wonderful Economy,” a jeans-clad and crew-cut model is caressed by a couple of financiers sporting bustiers.  They’ve tucked cash into his waistband and they carry briefcases full of $100 dollar bills while other pig-headed bankers throw money to the wind against the backdrop of a multinational bank.

The economic crisis isn’t the only issue that Armando Testa and Meltin’ Pot take on, however.  In the ad shown above, “001 Step to Prodigious Healthcare,” the same model sports stylish jeans and strides through a super-clean station towards a bullet train.  He holds a stethoscope in one hand and approaches a trio of scantily-clad nurses eager to assist him in the healthcare tasks that await him.

The bluejean-ed doctor above must be pleased enough with his healthcare system, but he might be a bit jealous of his hoodie-wearing colleague (below) who’s found a job sure to keep him busy for a long time – deliving pizza to a building full of underwear models in “001 Step to an Exciting Job.”

We understand from all this that Meltin’ Pot and Armando Testa have a thing or two to say about the state in which the world finds itself.  Even more, however, we  understand that all our economic problems can be solved if we simply slip on a pair of Meltin’ Pot jeans, so we’re headed out the door and the down the Via del Corso to buy some right now.

Images published by Ads of the World.

Advertising Agency: Armando Testa, Turin, Italy
Executive Creative Director: Michele Mariani
Creative Director: Luca Cortesini
Art Director: Luca Cortesini, Laura Sironi
Copywriter: Maria Meioli
Photographer: Dimitri Daniloff
Published: September 2009

Faithful eCool readers may have noted that it’s been a slow month in the Eternal City.  August is always rough in Rome: stores and restaurants close and normal daily life comes to a grinding halt as the city’s residents head for the seashore.

Those who are left in Rome (and numbers have been rising for years, but the economic downturn has certainly left lots of Romans unable to head out on vacation for the month of August) are always in search of a cooling breeze, some chlorinated water, and a place to get away from the stifling heat of the city.  Yesterday we showed you a photo of the pool, bar, disco, and poker club called All’Ombra dell Colosseo.  Today we bring you our favorite piece of publicity for All’Ombra – a sign for the poker club reminding Romans that they can play Texas Hold ‘Em in the shadow of the Colosseum.

We love this on so many levels.  The juxtaposition of Texas and Rome seems strangely apropos when illustrated by the Colosseum.  And we’re reminded that the ancient Romans had the same love-hate relationship with gambling that continues today.   Though some late Republican statesmen argued that gambling corrupted morals and though all gambling, except betting at the circus and races, was forbidden by law, archaeological and literary evidence suggests that the Romans gambled with aplomb, especially emperors like Augustus and Nero, but also common people, whose dice and gaming boards have survived the ages.

Probably everyone who reads this site knows that the eCool team has a thing about the She-Wolf.  We love her.  Unconditionally.  After all, she’s Rome’s urban icon.

We’re not purists however.  We’ll take our She-Wolf shaken, stirred, commercialized, and  multiplied.  In fact, we love nothing more than an advertiser who decides to incorporate the She-Wolf into their campaign in a creative manner,  and so, on a recent August giro through Rome (note the deserted streets in the photo above), we were pleased to discover that Binacci, a furniture company, is making clever use of our Roman heroine and her offspring.

The image shows the She-Wolf atop the pedestal she inhabits in the Capitoline Museums.  Below her clamors a sextuplet of Romuluses and Remuses hoping for a bit of nourishment.  The tagline reads, “Binacci multiples the benefits with discounts up to 50%.”

There are lots of clever protests and attention-getting antics going on in Rome ahead of tomorrow’s G-8 meeting.  Polar bears took to the streets yesterday, rightfully protesting the loss of their homeland to global warming.

Oxfam, a group of non-governmental organizations from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice, chose another tactic, staging a stunt photo in the Circus Maximus.

In this mise en scène, bobble-headed G8 leaders lye on a triclinium, eating grapes and reciting ancient poems accompanied by a cithera, whilst huge flames destroy Rome. The message?  The eight leaders of the most powerful countries are, like Emperor Nero, ignoring the flaming crisis engulfing the world around them.

Sweet dreams are made of this.

Not surprisingly, Bono is getting into the action too.  Yesterday he published a love letter to Italy in La Stampa, in which he pleaded for the Berlusconi-led G8 to fulfill its obligations to the world’s poorest people.

Photos by Oxfam its partner UCODEP are posted on Flickr.

As Italy warms up for the commencement of the G-8 meeting in L’Aquila tomorrow, protesters and activists of every species are taking to the streets.  Yesterday saw an invasion of homeless polar bears scattered across the Eterna.

Sitting in heavily-touristed areas, the homeless bears displayed signs encouraging the G-8 leaders to act against global warming.  One sign read, “Help a poor bear in without a home,” while another said, “I’ve lost my home because of global warming.”

Other cardboard box-conveyed messages included, “My home has melted” and “I’m a climate refugee.”

Go bears!

Photos from La Repubblica.

We’re pretty much in love with this advertising campaign designed for a German pasta maker, Mondo Pasta.  The huge faces seen above were mounted on boats in Hamburg, Germany.  As you’ve probably already deduced, the ropes coming out of their mouths suggest enthusiastic slurping.  The tagline reads: “Mondo Pasta. So good you can’t let go.”

Though few human rights activists would consider Rome an ideal city, there are any number of organizations in the Eterna that we admire, not least for their efforts to raise awareness about the equality of all human beings irregardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.

We’ve shown you publicity mounted by those organizations in the past, most recently the posters put up by the CGIL labor union, reminding us that Italians and foreigners share basic emotions and bodily functions, with their “same blood,” “same sweat,” “same smile,” and “same tears” campaign.

That CGIL campaign was so elegant and so emotion-stirring that when we stumbled upon the latest piece of advertising meant to remind us to treat others as we ourselves would be treated, we were a bit taken aback at its uncompromising bluntness.  That said, we like the posters that have appeared all over town thanks to ARCI, a leftist organization dedicated to social promotion.

You can see the poster above in a beautiful photo taken by the famous and fabulous Susan Sanders.   Above the figures, it says, “You call us a dirty black man and a disgusting lesbian.”  Between them, the text continues, “But are you offended if we call you a mafioso Italian?” And then further below, “Racism is a boomerang.  Sooner or later it comes back to you.”