Just stumbled upon these great ads for MUF, the Museo Nazionale del Fumetto e dell’Imagine (the Italian Comics Museum) in Lucca.
The copy in the golden frame reads, “Comics are art. Just funnier.”
Advertising Agency: JWT, Milan, Italy
Creative Director: Pietro Maestri
Art Directors: Cristiana Boccassini, Flavio Mainoli
Copywriters: Bruno Bertelli, Paolo Cesano
Photographer: Corbis
Published: January 2008
We haven’t eaten there, but we’re digging the creative advertising campaigns for La Carbonara at Via Panisperna 214. We’re especially taken with the artichoke serpent above. Anyone been there? Do let us know how it is.
Sometimes the wind is against me.
I breathe it only because I have to.
I suck it in and spit it out cursing.
But today we’re going the same way.
And it’s everything I can do.
To stay on the ground.
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (see below) seems to be the most advertised artwork of the year. The painting was cleverly remade in an advertisement for Renaissance Hotels and now the Zephyrs or Winds that blow Venus to shore in the original painting star in an inspiring ad from Reebok (see above).
Agency: mcgarrybowen, New York, United States
Creative Directors: Lew Willig & Mark Koelfgen
Art Director: Lew Willig
Copywriter: Mark Koelfgen
Photographer: Kai Uwe Gundlach
Here in Rome we’re coming off a Canova high - this winter the Galleria Borghese hosted a huge Canova exhibit, filling the noble palace with sculptures created by the 19th-century neoclassical master. Among the marble personalities who did time in the Rome show were the ethereal Three Graces, relieved to be temporarily out of the chilly Hermitage and away from the bitter winter winds of Saint Petersburg. Now that the Canova exhibit has ended and the Graces have gone home, we’re missing those powder-white puff-beauties, and so, when we stumbled upon this advertising campaign, we were glad to discover that Beauty, Joy, and Charm have taken up modeling.
Canova never thought of carving a radish, but then again, he probably never had knives like those made by WMF. Those sharp blades of steel not only enabled the replication in radish of his Three Graces, but also the embodiment of the classical aesthetic in such unlikely materials as pineapple and carrot. Those German knife makers are real cut ups!
Advertising Agency: KNSK, Hamburg, Germany
Creative Director: Tim Krink
Art Director: Thomas Thiele
Photographer: Markus Heumann
Published: October 2007
With coffee being the national Italian drink, it’s hard to ignore these ads for the Stella espresso pot. The copy reads “The Bite of Coffee,” and though we love a coffee that goes right for the nose and the mouth, we’re not sure we want it to be quite as aggressive as these ads suggest it might be.
Advertising Agency: Lorenzo Marini & Associati, Milan, Italy
Creative Director: Lorenzo Marini
Art Director: Paolo Bianchini
Copywriter: Elisa Maino
Photographer: LSD
Published: December 2007
LILA is the acronym for an AIDS awareness organization founded in Italy some twenty years ago - Lega Italiana per la Lotta Contro L’Aids. Among their multifarious missions is that of encouraging the use of condoms. To that end, they’ve come up with some visual reminders so clever as to even make us happy to see those nauseatingly sweet Raphael angels appear on our screens. Download the wallpaper here.
At first glance, this new DHL ad - “No Size Limits” - seemed familiar to us at the eCool Compound. More specifically, those carefully-kept toenails seemed like some we’d seen before, even hundreds of times, for they bear a distinct resemblance to the toenails on the Colossal Sculpture of the Roman Emperor Constantine that’s kept in Rome’s Capitoline Museums (see below). Good to know that the Emperor is picking up a few extra sesterces by doing some foot modeling.
Agency: Jung von Matt/Alster, Hamburg, Germany
Exec Creative Director: Oliver Voss
Creative Directors: Daniel Frericks & Götz Ulmer
Copywriter: Tobias Grimm
Art Director: Jens Paul Pfau
Illustrator: Florian Zwinge
There’s nothing like a little mythology to spice up a motorino ad and so we’re pleased to share this missive from Yamaha. In an effort to promote the X-City, Yamaha has put a wolf on their newest scooter model and sent the animal out for a spin around Rome. Here at the eCool Compound - where imaginations run wild - we like to envision the wolf as a modern-day La Lupa who’s just dropped Romulus and Remus off at school and is headed off to her day job at an adoption agency.
In a country in which birth control is prohibited by the religion of the majority, there’s a condom machine on every corner and some of the wittiest advertising for preservativi that we’ve seen. A contradiction in the culture? Nah! To our minds, what is proved by this seeming fact that one CAN hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind at any given time and still make sense of the world.
The copy on these ads reads, “Whatever is on your mind…”, implying, we suppose, that Durex has a product for every intimate occasion. Maybe that explains how it is that Italy can have the lowest birth rate in Europe. We like the Gahan Wilson-esque drawings with their whimsical drawing and sexy associations.
Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson, Milan, Italy
Creative Director: Federica Ariagno
Art Director: Erick Loi
Copywriter: Francesca Pagliarini
Illustrator: Sergi Sanchez
Published: February 2008
We’ve just done a quick survey here at the eCool Compound and it’s clear that not one of us has a full understanding of Italy’s fascination with Dr. Scholl’s sandals. Throughout the many combined years that we’ve all lived here, the popularity of these wooden-soled and so-called orthopedic sandals has never waned. They’re sold in practically every pharmacy and a vast assortment of styles are displayed in street side drugstore windows.
Are they really comfortable? No one here at the eCool Compound finds them to be so (though, admittedly, most of us haven’t slipped a pair onto our tender toes since childhood). Are those wooden soles really good for your feet? We’ve have no idea. And are they really wood?
What we do like is their new and sexy ad campaign (And, hey, look! Those Dr. Scholl’s have heels! And glitter!) The copy reads: Mettiti in luce, baby or Highlight yourself, baby. Maybe we’ll have to give them another try. Wouldn’t these be a lovely addition to a mid-summer seaside stroll?
Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson, Milan, Italy
Creative Director: Federica Ariagno
Art Director: Erick Loi
Copywriter: Francesca Pagliarini
Photographer: LSD
