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If Italy’s tourism ministry is hoping to make waves with a new marketing campaign promoting the country’s many wonders, it’s sure to hit the mark, even if it’s not what the government envisioned.
Launched last week, the “Open for Meraviglia” campaign – which uses the Italian word for “awe” – quickly stumbled.
A computerized version of Botticelli’s Venus branded a “virtual influencer” immediately boomeranged into a meme-fest on social media as critics said it played on stereotypes about Italians. Astute observers noticed that the winery featured in the video explaining the campaign was actually in Slovenia, Italy’s neighbor to the northeast.
And the marketing company surprised the campaign domain name when they found out that it had not been registered. “Marketing is a serious matter,” the company, Marketing Toys, wrote on its newly registered website.
Even some members of the government were confused by the campaign, which was produced with the national tourism agency ENIT.
The deputy culture minister, Vittorio Sgarbi, said he was confused by the slogan, as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, recently proposed a law that would fine Italians for using foreign words in official communications.
“Why use ‘Open for Meraviglia,'” Mr. Sgarbi told the ANSA news agency. “It is enough to write: ‘Italia Meraviglia.'”
The Italian government is spending 9 million euros, almost $10 million, on a new one-year global campaign, which aims to boost tourism to Italy, a sector still recovering from a drop in travel largely caused by the coronavirus pandemic. After a big increase in 2022, tourism experts expressed optimism that the current season could break the record.
The Armando Testa Group, the advertising agency that created the tourism campaign, described the figure of Venus from Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” that is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence as “one of the most famous women in the world” and in a good way. to represent Italy.
“Venus returns as an allegory of rebirth and renewal,” reads the blurb on the company’s website.
But some critics complain that turning a Renaissance icon into a modern influencer feeds into old stereotypes about Italy.
“Venus Botticelli turned into Barbie,” sniffed one commentator, while another dismissed the campaign as a mishmash of predictable clichés “where the only thing missing is the mandolin, which, as is known, every Italian is true” strums after eating their pizza. (The campaign features Venus as a hip fashionista, taking selfies in Venice’s St. Mark’s Square, eating pizza on Lake Como and posing in front of the Colosseum on a bicycle.)
Undaunted by the criticism, Daniela Santanchè, the tourism minister, said she stood by the campaign, which officially began in May. “One of the goals of this international campaign is to reach young people, so we use instruments and languages that are close to them,” he said in a radio interview.
The campaign was also ridiculed when it was discovered that the German version of the website had been too literal in some translations – translating the city of Brindisi as “Toast” (in Italian “brindisi” is a celebratory toast while drinking), etc. errors. The German version has been taken down.
Footage of vineyards in Slovenia has many Italians scratching their heads, especially given the importance of Italian wine to national identity.
“I don’t want to just mock the Ministry of Tourism” because using stock photos or videos is normal – “everyone does it, so it doesn’t matter,” said Massimiliano Milic, Trieste-based filmmaker. “But at least double-check what you’re wearing.” Mr. Milic noticed the similarity between the sun-kissed patio in the video and the vineyard he knows in Slovenia just across the Italian border and posted his findings online. The image is from a stock portal website, and it is not clear that it was shot in Slovenia, he said.
“It’s a mistake that can happen,” he said. But in the case of “an official video, made for the Italian government, for the ministry of tourism, I just don’t know how it works,” or why the agency didn’t check it properly, let alone take the original footage. , he added.
Some critics note that Italy’s national tourism campaigns have a history of collapse. These include the 2007 homespun campaign featuring Italian ministers inviting tourists to “Please visit our country,” the 2010 “Magic Italy” campaign voiced by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and the more recent verybello.it digital platform to promote Milan 2015. Expo, which was ridiculed when it was first introduced because it was only available in Italian and left Sicily off the map.
But the creators of the Venus campaign found solace in the saying “there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
On Thursday, Armando Testa’s group published a full-page ad in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera with the title (ungrammatical) “Open for GRAZIE” to note that in the days since its presentation, the campaign “breaks down the walls of indifference and gives life to the cultural debate that lives.
Venus is also grateful, the ad agency said. “It is 500 years since he has spoken about. If this is not surprising.”
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