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
Most of us here at eCool are simply not old enough to remember Maidenform’s “I dreamed” ad series that ran for some 20 years from 1949 to the late 1960s. Despite our lack of direct experience with the advertisements, a quick review of this revolutionary and provocative campaign leaves us awestruck. In the era of stay-at-home moms and wives, Maidenform’s ads suggested that women might succeed outside conventional gender roles - particularly if they let Maidenform support them as they pursued their lofty goals. The liberated message of this ad campaign was conveyed with images of women brazenly exposing their bras while doing something amazing. And on every ad, the copy read: “I Dreamed I [insert activity here] in my Maidenform bra.”
Predictably, our favorite ad in this series is one that looks back to ancient Rome, replacing the popular male charioteers of the ancient past with a charioteress clad in a torpedo-esque bra (eat your heart out Madonna) that will surely allow her bust to reach the finish line long before the rest of her does. The copy reads “I Dreamed I Drove Them Wild in My Maidenform Bra,” and the ads dates to 1961 (we think), the era of swords-and-sandals epics, about two years after the release of the blockbuster epic, Ben-Hur and about two years before maiden-formed Liz Taylor burst onto the screen as Cleopatra.
No doubt the majority of our readers are aware that the Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, and his government have been deposed, leaving Italy in a state that’s quite relatively common - without a government. Elections scheduled for mid-April will remedy this situation and the campaigning for office has already begun so that the city is cloaked in election posters singing the praises of this candidate and that one.
As visitors and residents to Rome are aware, such posters are most often mounted on metal street standards. Those who want to put up posters are required to apply for permits allowing them to cover whatever the current ad campaign with their own advertisement. The result? Constantly changing streetside visuals, the dense paper layers of which are as chock-full of contemporary history as the soil of Rome is with strata of the ancient past.
Thus, we giggled when we saw the poster above. It looks like just another political poster in election season, but upon further inspection we discerned it to be an advertisement for an exhibit of photographs by Carina Wachsmann that’s being held in the Palazzo Valentini. Aptly titled, “Electoral Lasagna,” Washmann’s photo are studies of the layers of political posters seen on Rome’s streets and admittedly we haven’t seen it. But, the poster advertising her exhibit definitely wins our vote.
Here at the eCool Compound, we’re rabid fans of the Meltin’ Pot brand, admiring in particular its tendency to place its advertising on the back of Roman buses thereby creating the impression that the Eterna is filled with oversized, ultra-hot, jean-clad booties that are gliding through its narrow streets.
It seems that Meltin’ Pot is ramping things up for 2008. They’ve recently released a new ad campaign designed by the ever-clever Armando Testa and photographed by Richard Bagnoli.
Titled “I Have a Dream” (a phrase in keeping with the American overtones of their Meltin’ Pot name), the ads depict denim-wearing guys fulfilling their every desire. A bare-chested boxer stands ready to deliver a knock-out to the shrouded and sickle-bearing figure of death (see top photo). A master bowler sends his ball spinning down a desolate highway in an effort to destroy the smoking, spewing factory at its end (see above). And a guitar hero performs for the enjoyment of a skyscraper city (below).
Advertising Agency: Armando Testa, Turin, Italy
Creative Director: Michele Mariani
Art Directors: Luca Cortesini, Laura Sironi
Copywriters: Dario Digeronimo, Maria Meioli
Photographer: Riccardo Bagnoli
Published: January 2008
Freddy - makers of sportwear - have been putting together some amazing ad campaigns lately with the help of the 1861 United Agency in Milan (too bad their clothes aren’t as cool as their ads). The recent ads have been done in an aesthetic that might be called “industrial deconstruction” and their latest offerings which declare their sponsorship of the Italian Olympic team are in that vein.
The ad above features Lia Parolari, a member of the gymnastics team. The copy reads, “I move along the fragile border between fear and dream.” The composition of her super-elongated body emphasizes the fragility of her task for its made of precariously stacked cups, bowls, glasses, and plates.
The volleyball version features star player Elenora LoBanco and the copy reads, “This hit will be with me for ever.” The central part of her body is a made of mallets, emphasizing with which she will strike the ball.
Rhythmical Dancer Elisa Santoni. Copy: “Make all my ambitions turn into precision.” Body made of compasses and protractors.
Simone Collio, 100 meter sprinter. Copy: “Let my muscles be up to my dreams.” Body is a race car.
Advertising Agency: 1861 United, Milan, Italy
Creative Directors: Federico Pepe, Stefania Siani
Art Directors: Federico Pepe, Micol Talso
Copywriters: Stefania Siani, Luca Beato
Photographer: Lorenzo Vitturi
Italy is one of the places in the world in which you can be certain that food will never be mixed up with anything else. Food is simple but food is sacred here - particularly when eaten in its simplest forms. It is perhaps that fact that makes this advertising campaign for Esselunga Supermarkets so darn funny. Is that cheese or some ruined fluted columns?
Teepees or Prosciutto? Ice Cream or Cabbage? The questions are so ridiculous that they serve to point out just what silly things we do with food sometimes, trying to take products that are perfectly lovely on their own and make them into something else entirely.
