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Armando Testa out of his mind on Open to Meraviglia? Debate

1 year ago babelfish

Armando Testa out of his mind on Open to Meraviglia? Debate

Armando Testa's agency responds to criticism of the Venus influencer with tones that have provoked debate and controversy, not all of which are criticisms of the agency's self-praising advertising

They are the communication experts. That is, the creatives of Armando Testa's agency, but perhaps it was better when on their site it was almost impossible to find any trace of the spot (absent from the main one, found only in the newsroom subsite) commissioned by Daniela Santanché 's Ministry of Tourism. Instead today they wanted to buy nothing less than a page in the Corriere della Sera to explain their reasons, to counter the criticisms, all disguised as a thank you permeated by irony and sarcasm.

armando testa venus courier

In fact, from the agency they let it be known that the goal has been achieved, that the social networks only speak of the Venere di Testa, that in short, they know a lot and those who criticize do not understand anything about advertising. Or worse, it even plays into their hands.

“When a tourism promotion campaign breaks down the wall of indifference and manages to give life to a cultural debate like the one ignited in just 5 days, it always represents something positive. Thank you because it hasn't happened for years that the news of an institutional campaign aroused such an impact". So from the Agency they put their hands forward: "It is a campaign that has only been presented but not yet released".

And then begins a passive-aggressive reply in the tone of a rather vicious irony which, predictably, will lead to further controversies: "Thanks to all those who imagined that the video intended for the presentation of the project – and therefore made with archive material – was already the official spot”. With these few lines we try to file away the criticisms that rained down from all over the smudges, the mistakes , the cheap stock images, the Slovenian backdrops, the testimonial model without his knowledge, further magnified by a site available in just four languages ​​without the French, automatic translations that transform the cities of Camerino into Garderobe or Brindisi into Toast.

But from Armando Testa they go straight on their own way, in defense of the Venus influencer. “Thank you for the thousands of views, memes, comments: they really made us feel like the biggest Italian agency, with a huge creative department of millions of people working on the same concept”. As if to say: if it's ugly, the resources are what they are. Yes, the resources. As for the controversy over the costs: “Thanks to those who made us feel like millionaires! But ENIT's 9 million euros are earmarked for media planning in all the main markets."

In the closing they get carried away: “Armando Testa thanks her and Venus with us: it has been more than 500 years since we talked about her so much. If this isn't a wonder." In short, the ministerial campaign takes the lead in the work of art and not the other way around, in the counter-narrative of the advertisers.

And immediately, predictably, another river of social controversy over the reply from the Armando Testa agency, with the Venus influencer once again shooting to the top of the country's trend topics. Adriano Attus from San Remasco, creative director of Il Sole 24 Ore , predicts the discussions that will follow and starts collecting them from his Twitter profile.

The journalist Marianna Aprile of the weekly Oggi (RCS) relies on irony: Close to pray (the page purchased in the Corriere opens with the macaronic claim Open to thanks). As well as my colleague Giuseppe Smorto , a lifetime in Repubblica : "I understand that Armando Testa needs some bullshit, I'm applying!"

Selvaggia Lucarelli , who most of all had insisted on the flaws of Testa's Venus influencer campaign, underlines: “Piccata response from the series: as long as we talk about it. The demonstration that they don't have good copy and good ideas, in fact”.

Gianandrea Facchini , Founder & CEO of Buzztech brings up the minister's wardrobe.

Matteo Flora , teacher, reputation and crisis expert, attacks: “What is 1990, not having understood that if everyone talks about you remembering you as an idiot, no, you don't magically become a genius. You're just a popular cretin." And then he remarks: "Popularity and value are different concepts".

"I don't think calling everyone who criticizes you stupid is a wise move", writes on his Facebook page Daniele Chieffi , former Head of Social Media management & Digital PR at Eni and Director of Communications and PR at the Minister of Innovation and digitization. “In communication, if the audiences understand something different from what you want to communicate, it is the communicator who is wrong, not the public. Isn't this the definitive campaign? Why present it then? Why, knowing that it would become public, why not register the domains, the social handles, not take care of the translations on the site (Camerino=Garderobe) and use Slovenian stock images?” “But let's assume – continues Chieffi – that this is really the case, why wait days before saying: “Stop everyone, it's not the real campaign, just the presentation of the creative idea”? However, now the letter is there and essentially says that we are all coaches of the national team, virologists and creatives "millions of creatives", so naively good as to believe that the agency had collected 9 million euros and that in the end thanks but thank you very much for having made an institutional campaign grind stellar numbers, under the banner of "provided they talk about it". Too bad it doesn't work like this: it doesn't matter how much you talk about it but how you talk about it. The world of communication has changed since the 90s”.

Enrico Sola , an expert in the field of advertising, known for the Suzukimaruti blog , notes in a long post: “Let one thing be clear: everyone in that agency knows very well that the “provided they talk about it” is nonsense that makes no sense. They use it all the same, as a smokescreen for those who are not good at communication (and if they don't change their minds, they are not good at life) and still say "everyone is talking about it: it's a successful campaign!".

Telegraphic thoughts before going to do damage to work, given that the agency co-responsible for the "Open to Meraviglia" campaign has seen fit to buy a page in Corriere della Sera to give its response to the controversies that have greeted its creativity for the Ministry of Tourism.
1 – The page is written well and you can feel the hand of a copyist (apart from an "and also" towards the end which had the "nails on the blackboard" effect). The text is so interesting, as a writing technique, that Gaia apparently will have her students analyze it this morning in class.
2 – The text clarifies some points on which people not familiar with communication continue to insist, completely wrong. Above all, the question of the "9 million budget" is finally well explained. Mea culpa (and the fault of many in the sector who have commented on the campaign) for not having explained something which – professional deformation – seemed obvious to me, namely the difference between the "average budget" (i.e. the money invested to buy the spaces in which to physically place advertising/communication, i.e. 9 million) and compensation for the agency which (I don't know, but it's still an order of magnitude less in the figure)
3 – Unfortunately, although clarifying and well written, the page gets wrapped up in one of the most puerile and unsustainable excuses of recent years, which all those who beat up a shitty resort to: "for better or worse, as long as we talk about it".
It's a cliché that doesn't work, buried by facts (apart from the world of television trash and national politics, awareness at all costs, which does not take into account people's liking, is not a relevant fact; indeed, more time passes the more it is evident that in the contemporary era public judgment is more important than popularity regardless) and has been indefensible for decades. We have already talked about it several times, above (for example here on my blog, on the occasion of a communication failure by Parah).
Let one thing be clear: in that agency everyone knows very well that the "provided they talk about it" is nonsense that makes no sense. They use it all the same, as a smokescreen for those who are not good at communication (and if they don't change their minds, they are not good at life) and still say "everyone is talking about it: it's a successful campaign!".
4 – In the end, the coarse and out of focus criticisms of those who are not part of the world of communication played into the hands of those who produced the campaign: it was enough to answer them to evoke a sense of "you didn't understand anything, go home ”.
This happens, for example, in the part of the page that talks about the storytelling video for the campaign mistaken for an ad. If so, in my blog post related to the campaign the presentation video is treated and commented as such.
5 – Yes, the text lacks a brushstroke (with a large brush) of humility: if an entire country, some for sentiment, some for some technical reason, some for an aesthetic sense, etc. gives a creative job, the data cannot be overlooked and cannot be resolved with the passive-aggressive jab of the type “an immense creative department of millions of people working on the same concept”, aka “a country of national team coaches ”. Also because advertising is aimed at ordinary people, those who in almost all cases do not have analytical tools to receive communication: they take it as it comes and react immediately, superficially and emotionally. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work and there are no misunderstood advertisers: there are advertisers who have not been able to make themselves understood.
"Shit public" we only get told by Skiantos.
6 – I still can't find the campaign credits, i.e. the names and surnames of the creatives, strategists, etc. who, within the agency, helped create it. Normally it is a communication that comes out immediately, together with the press release announcing the campaign. There's nothing here yet.
I wonder if this happens to protect individuals from undeserved pillory (in the end, if you work in an agency, sometimes you have to contribute to campaigns you don't believe in, because it's your job and you have to adapt) or if there is actually a little ' of embarrassment on the part of individuals to sign a campaign so poorly received urbi et orbi.
7 – Personally, had I been the agency, I would not have said anything. Or perhaps I would have written something more humane and less condescending and passive/aggressive than those piqued "thanks".
I would have said that in 2023 it is healthy, right and contemporary that communication arises from listening and that the collective sentiment, cleaned of all the mistakes of those who are not in the trade, is a precious treasure for understanding where the world is going.
This doesn't mean that creatives and agencies don't have the ball of strategy and creativity in hand, but it does mean that whoever decides how to run a campaign must know well (and must have listened well and recently) what is being said out there.
Campaigns, especially the important ones, are often "tested", that is, they are shown to small groups of people divided by target, in contexts of analysis and research, and we see how they react. The tests are not very precise tools, but on such blatantly problematic campaigns they give clear indications. In this case I don't think they were done. Or they were done wrong.
I would have also written that the interest of many in the theme is a sign that Tourism is something that is deeply felt by the Italian population and perhaps pride in the beauty of this country is one of the last reasons for "patriotic sentiment" still sheltered from the damage of rhetoric and the misery of facts.
And that perhaps the story of a beautiful and profound Italy (here the story is that of a superficial Italy, which does not move an inch from the postcard, from stereotypes, etc.) passes precisely from collective intelligence, from the ability of those who know how to enhance it "in proximity".
8 – The theme of how to communicate this country in terms of tourism is long and has been the subject of ten-year discussions. I think reading what relevant and expert figures in this world like Roberta Milano or Gianluigi Tiddia can give an idea of ​​the complexity of the debate.
What I hear myself say, as a communicator not specialized in tourism (in 30 years I've worked on it a bit, but I've never made it a "vertical" skill) is that the structural defect of the "Open to Meraviglia" campaign is precisely the its being "quantitative", that is, based on bringing attention and tourist flows towards the usual destinations, those abused, crowded, full of centurions with plastic swords, restaurants with "spageti bolognaise", tourist traps and stereotypes raining down.
In short, it is the tourism system itself that hopes that such a campaign will not be successful, because the sector needs a different kind of tourism, deeper, less banal, which does not crowd the usual destinations (often well beyond saturation limits), which gives space to the quality of life and less standardized experiences, which paradoxically attracts fewer tourists, but more willing to spend, more in search of real and authentic experiences, more open to discovering Italy and not its sad plaster copy, in the souvenir stalls.
In short, the country does not need a sell-out campaign, such as "Open to Meraviglia". The exact opposite is needed: a campaign to re-position Italy upwards, away from the usual destinations, towards a different type of tourism.
It's a decidedly more difficult campaign than saying “Visit Venice, it's so romaaaantic” with or without embarrassing testimonials.
It requires a certain amount of courage. And it expects the Ministry to listen to the tourism sector (which would have asked for exactly this, beyond the large groups that make a living with tourism "a lot per kilo").
Here no one listens to anyone. And the results are visible.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/armando-testa-open-to-meraviglia-dibattito/ on Thu, 27 Apr 2023 11:16:20 +0000.