Truly Deeply/Madly

In the past Venice was thought of as one of the most roman­tic cities in the world, these days it seems that the romance is fad­ing and adver­tis­ing is tak­ing its place. Today the Venet­ian author­i­ties are doing restora­tion work on the Doge’s Palace and the Pri­gioni Nove, and to get fund­ing they have sold scaf­fold­ing to cloth­ing com­pany Sis­ley. The Bridge of Sighs has all but dis­ap­peared. This type of ‘cul­tural spon­sor­ship’ where com­pa­nies pay for their brand to be vis­i­ble in promi­nent loca­tions and
the money goes towards restor­ing the cul­tural mon­u­ments, seems to be hap­pen­ing all over Europe
and opin­ion is divided.

Pre­vi­ously Venice didn’t have bill­boards inside the city, and shops had mod­est sig­nage and lim­ited adver­tis­ing. The bar­rier was lifted last year when a piece of mar­ble fell from a build­ing onto a Ger­man tourist. This year fears of law­suits were renewed when a piece of mar­ble fell from the Cor­rer into
the piazza.

Nor­mally when pub­lic build­ings in Venice are under­go­ing restora­tion behind scaf­fold­ing, they would be cov­ered with life­size ren­di­tions of the same build­ings facade. Venice is falling apart and has the costly issue of restora­tion. The offi­cial Venet­ian posi­tion is a plea of des­per­a­tion. Tourism is down, Fed­eral sub­si­daries are down and the build­ings are falling down. Their solu­tion is to sell the adver­tis­ing rights
to the facades being restored.

Recently we have seen a H&M cam­paign on the Palais de Jus­tice in Paris and a Veo­lia cam­paign on
a promi­nent tower in Prague, now Venice has a Sis­ley cam­paign on the Bridge of Sighs. Sis­ley, the sophis­ti­cated and edgy brand of the Benet­ton Group, con­tin­ues to offer inspi­ra­tional col­lec­tions aligned with the avante-garde trends of today. With cloth­ing avail­able in over 120 coun­tries it has become one
of the lead­ing brands of cloth­ing in the world. The indis­putable fac­tor for the suc­cess of the brand through­out the world is its adver­tis­ing campaigns.

Sisley’s lat­est cam­paign is plas­tered over the bridge and adja­cent build­ings declar­ing Il Cielo dei Sospiri — The Sky of the Sighs. Is this inspired method of com­mu­ni­cat­ing a brand’s mes­sage ruin­ing the cities cul­tural beauty? The Bridge of Sighs is one of the most famous scenes of the city. It is renowned world­wide for being one of the great exam­ples of bridge archi­tec­ture, a must-see for tourists. These days tourists strug­gle to see the bridge and sur­round­ing archi­tec­ture, and they are in uproar. How can we con­demn the Venet­ian author­i­ties for going to any length to keep its cities archi­tec­tural trea­sures alive? Even if the spon­sor­ing brands have their own self-serving agen­das. Either way the con­tro­versy over the way the city is main­tain­ing its her­itage will continue.

Cas­san­dra Gill, Design Director.

Tags: Brand Agency, Brand Design, Brand Experience, Brand Strategy, Corporate Image, Graphic Design Melbourne, Interior Design, Melbourne Brand Strategy

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 11:27 am and is filed under Brand Voice, Creative, Experiences, Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.