The Most Scandalous Billboard In Town
11 May 2024
This is a good title, isn’t it? Maybe a bit of a clickbait given that the story isn’t so interesting, that is unless you’re very much into Italian politics from the 70s.
First, information that you absolutely need in order to understand this story.
So, without thinking of Aldo Moro as anything but the name of the area in my town where I spent my high school years passive smoking weed and witnessing my friends throw up from their 1 euro shots, I began to brainstorm the swimwear campaign.
Given that I am the weird corporate girly I am, I obviously wanted to use this as an occasion to free my creativity from the shackles of Publicis Groupe.
So, I shat out the line “Fuori Tutto” - which means “everything out” and can be applied to both sales and… well… everything out. In a swimwear sense.
Because our budget is near null much like our time, and we are in conservative small town in South Italy and can’t afford being sued, I googled what’s legal for ads in Italy and decided to let the patriarchy play in my favour by using a male nipple - the one find on Wikipedia to be exact - which is also free from usage right, as my lawyer, Chat GPT, concluded.
The billboard came out, and the locals were outraged. We had many horrible comments on our post, but also many that loved the campaign, because it was *funny*. It performed organically better than any other campaign we’ve ever posted, so, I consider it a success, in spite of some local whining.
A much more scandalous billboard came out the same day. The town wanted to commemorate the death of Aldo Moro, but instead of using a real photo of the politician, they used a photo of the actor who played him in a film.
And we made national newspapers! For the Aldo Moro fuckup, of course.
Still, the locals considered the billboard more scandalous. How can a nipple be considered scandalous? We all see at least two every day.
11 May 2024
This is a good title, isn’t it? Maybe a bit of a clickbait given that the story isn’t so interesting, that is unless you’re very much into Italian politics from the 70s.
First, information that you absolutely need in order to understand this story.
- My parents have a not so small business in my hometown, it’s a historic clothing shop (more like a department store, really) from 1859, so more than 160 years old, and I make free ads for them, mainly because they don’t pay me so I can withdraw my services if they don’t do exactly what I say.
- Said hometown is also the hometown of Aldo Moro, Italian statesman and prominent member of Christian Democracy and its centre-left wing (source: Wikipedia, because my high school history books didn’t go that far out of the 1950s). He is unfortunately very well known due to his unfortunate end, having been kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades on the 9th of May 1978 (source: Wikipedia, also).
- Beginning of May is when my parents love to start advertising swimwear.
So, without thinking of Aldo Moro as anything but the name of the area in my town where I spent my high school years passive smoking weed and witnessing my friends throw up from their 1 euro shots, I began to brainstorm the swimwear campaign.
Given that I am the weird corporate girly I am, I obviously wanted to use this as an occasion to free my creativity from the shackles of Publicis Groupe.
So, I shat out the line “Fuori Tutto” - which means “everything out” and can be applied to both sales and… well… everything out. In a swimwear sense.
Because our budget is near null much like our time, and we are in conservative small town in South Italy and can’t afford being sued, I googled what’s legal for ads in Italy and decided to let the patriarchy play in my favour by using a male nipple - the one find on Wikipedia to be exact - which is also free from usage right, as my lawyer, Chat GPT, concluded.
The billboard came out, and the locals were outraged. We had many horrible comments on our post, but also many that loved the campaign, because it was *funny*. It performed organically better than any other campaign we’ve ever posted, so, I consider it a success, in spite of some local whining.
A much more scandalous billboard came out the same day. The town wanted to commemorate the death of Aldo Moro, but instead of using a real photo of the politician, they used a photo of the actor who played him in a film.
And we made national newspapers! For the Aldo Moro fuckup, of course.
Still, the locals considered the billboard more scandalous. How can a nipple be considered scandalous? We all see at least two every day.