A mime artist attacks a drunk guy with his juggling equipment in Heineken’s “Know the Signs” viral marketing campaign against excessive drinking. The mime artist is in Italy, and, in the funny viral commercial, the guy filming says “I’m going to put this on the internet as soon as I get home.” I have seen a drunken brawl in Italy once (the weapon of choice was a chair), but it wasn’t as funny as this, and certainly didn’t have the public awareness issue. For your Italian lessons, the closing lines are: “Che idiota, ragazzi”, or “what an idiot, guys”. For more on the Heineken campaign, check out Knowthesigns.com, but make sure you’re over 18.

Continue reading: Funny Italian video from Heineken: mime artist attacks a drunk

Dustin Hoffman speaks Italian in this video where he tries his hand at reciting a poem by famous Italian poet, Giacomo Leopardi. The poem in question is described as Leopardi’s greatest work. Called “L’infinito”, it is about eternity and from the native Marche poet, works well as a tribute to the region.

The video above is a commercial to promote tourism in Italy’s beautiful Marche region, but it has been met with criticism from Italy’s intellectual elite due to Hoffman’s difficulties with the language. I actually think it works quite well, but perhaps not for an Italian public.

Imagine this in America and you’d have more than one Italo-American all of a sudden discovering their Italian roots and rushing back to the Marche. The region is Italy’s unsung beauty, and this commercial won’t do it any favours in keeping it a secret for the rest of us. I still give kudos to Hoffman for the effort, and think that of all American actors doing a publicity stunt, he is one of the few who would genuinely understand and appreciate the literary work at hand. See the poem in Italian after the jump, along with an English translation of “L’infinito”.

Continue reading: Dustin Hoffman "butchers" the Italian language: L'Infinito English translation

Via the much-awaited new film from Rob Marshall, the musical Nine, Alfa Romeo is doing some promotion of its new MiTo model. The film is a musical movie adaptation of Federico Fellini’s famous 8 1/2 film, with an incredible cast and all the glitz and glamour magnified of Chicago, Marshall’s other famous musical effort. What Alfa Romeo has to do with all this is anyone’s guess - a special edition? Just a sponsor? Whatever the case, the MiTo is still a sexy car. “Be Italian, Drive Passion” is an advertising slogan that works.

Continue reading: Rob Marshall's Nine: the video with Alfa Romeo MiTo

For some diversion on Sunday after Christmas, here is the Vodafone Christmas Card commercial featuring Italy’s star football player for Rome, Francesco Totti, as Santa Claus. He, together with his wife Ilary Blasi, is the face of Vodafone in Italy, and they often appear in commercials together. This time Totti has the last word, saying to Ilary “don’t you turn into La Befana”.

Continue reading: Francesco Totti as Father Christmas

A new advertising campaign in Italy to promote Italian monuments has a threatening slogan of “if you don’t visit it, we’ll take it away”, developed by the cultural and arts ministry. It’s an odd way of promoting tourism in Italy, in particular its historic monuments, but the campaign is meant to heighten appreciation of Italy’s incredible history.

As you can see in the photos, the Colosseum is being taken apart, and Michelangelo’s “David” is being moved elsewhere, to more deserving locations. It may seem to be a harsh message to those outside Italy, but the campaign seeks to address the gap between Italian and foreign tourists in the Belpaese.

Italians often lag behind overseas visitors in the appreciation of their own cultural and historic interests, and the campaign is aimed at arresting the decreasing trend of Italian tourists in Italy, with a goal of increasing local tourism by three percent in 2010, five percent in 2011 and another ten percent in 2012.

Continue reading: Touring Italy and its monuments: use it or lose it advertising campaign

Only the Italians could think of a female football team made up of hot Italian models. In this video you see the Italian models football team in action at 3,200 metres up the Stelvio pass in a promotional event that’s part of Pirelli tyres‘ “Tour of the Alps“. The match itself seemed to include a few moments of excitement with a yellow card here and there and some celebratory antics after a goal (no-one taking their tops off in -18C temperatures though); but we expect you’re more interested in the Italian model change room footage at the start.

Source | Autoblog.it

Continue reading: Video: hot Italian models play football on cold Stelvio Pass

After Silvio Berlusconi’s gaudy “Magic Italy” advertising campaign to promote the brand of Italy itself, we’re happy to see a much nicer video promoting travel to Italy. This Italian commercial is shown internationally as part of a huge investment that Italy is making in publicising tourism and travel to the Bel Paese.

While we had fun with the Noemi Letizia logo, the Italia Much More video is a lovely vision of Italy, showing famous sites such as the Colosseum in Rome, St Mark’s Square in Venice, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and, of course, a “cin cin” dinner of good cuisine and Italian wine.

To see more of this advertising campaign and for further tips on travel in Italy, see the Italia Much More website.

Source | Travelblog.it

Continue reading: Touring Italy: new advertising campaign with Italia Much More video and site

This video shows the new Italian commercial for underwear brand, Calzedonia, using a very patriotic and nationalistic theme with the Italian national anthem sung in a breathy style by singer Sushy. The advertising campaign has met with criticism, not only for the change of words from “brothers” to “sisters” (the anthem is usually “fratelli d’Italia”) but also for the use of the anthem for commercial purposes. The Italian television commercial includes visual references to the words of the anthem, and concludes with a sunset scene of Rome, and the slogan, “the future is pink”. There have been calls to ban the ad. Your thoughts?

Source | TVblog.it

Continue reading: Italian television commercial uses national hymn: Calzedonia ad to be banned?

Restaurants in Rome are offering free pasta tastings on the streets to get prospective customers to eat in their particular establishment. We don’t know if this is an effective strategy or not (it wouldn’t be one for me) but if you find yourself with a pasta plate shoved at you, you know why.

The publicity stunt can be found in Piazza di Spagna, near the Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona and Piazza Venezia. Apparently Rome’s citizens are unhappy about the move, saying that it suggests tourists are there to be fleeced by those purporting to provide hospitality.

Photo | Flickr

Continue reading: Spaghetti on the streets of Rome: restaurant publicity

We’ve already talked about the great Dolce & Gabbana orgy at Milan’s central train station, but this time advertising in Italy takes a sober turn with the “making of” video for the Nokia N97 poster at the station. Not as fun or exciting as the Aussie bum posters in Milan, but all the same impressive due to its scale.

Continue reading: Nokia N97 video: Milan central station

I’ve had a struggle trying to find the actual product in this Italian advertising campaign, but here’s a giggle for your day, with this funny Italian commercial. Subtitles are in English so you can understand what they’re saying. The big question is: what’s the moral of the story…?

Continue reading: Funny Italian commercial: donkeys balls tell the time

Rome’s city council has launched a competition to design Rome’s new logo, with the only rules being that it must contain the word “Roma” and the traditional wolf symbol, stylised as per the designer’s inspiration.

The purpose is to create an image that will universally evoke Rome, as in the famous “I love NY” with the red heart logo. The new image will be used as the basis for taking Rome global, creating an international Italian brand and manufacturing merchandising bearing the logo.

The “Roma in un’immagine” or “Rome in an image” competition is open to all, so that students and graduates can participate alongside professional studios and agencies. Proposals and designs must be submitted by October 6th. Together with the glory of having designed the eternal city’s future logo, the winner will receive 40,000 euros. We’re presuming it won’t be anything like the magic Italy logo…

Continue reading: Rome city logo design competition