Guerrilla thinking

Most of non-Italian readers don’t know what we are talking about.
But the story we are going to tell is a good-to-know one  for anyone who aims to work as a professional in the creative industry.

Let’s start with the facts. 
Fiat (in case you don’t know a.k.a. major italian automotive brand) has just released a new campaign that plays on the good feeling of being Italian to tell Italians they should spend our money to buy a new car.
You can find it with english subtitles here.

It starts with a question: how many italies do we know? And then on with the many rhetorical sentences: the one of young people seeking a job, the one of colorful traditions and bla bla bla.Needless to say the ending will be that Panda is the expression of the Italy we like.

Apart from wondering how much money this company spent to air a prime time tv ad that last 1.35 minutes on National TV broadcasters, we think the all creativity is wrong and here’s why,

1) THE PAYOFF IS LAME

After telling us that every day in Italy some people wake up and put passion in what they do, the ad come to the conclusion that we are what we do. 
THE THING WE MAKE, MAKE US.
Wow, thanks Panda.
This even original than the story of people working with passion. Never heard it.
Like there have not been a zillion places where we have read things like “you are what you wear” or “you are what you eat”. 

And just F.Y.I. Panda, every time we did, we thought this was a bunch of lies.
The things Italians do, don’t make Italians. You might have a monkey job and be an unacknowledged genius.

So, unless the new panda can fly or throw rockets or laser beams from its tail, well chill out. You’re just making a car. And making a car IS a monkey job.

2) TOO MUCH RETHORIC CAN BE A BOOMERANG ON THE WEB

Yes you are Italian. Yes, Panda it’s the best of the sunshine country.
You can say that. But before you do you’d better be sure that no one can Google Fiat and easily find out that it produces a lot of cars in production plants located outside Italy.
Kragujevac and Tychy are two huge production plants located in Poland and Serbia.
So much for the best of italy working with passion… don’t you think?

This is the typical arrogance of brands that simply ignore the fact that nowadays people have easy access to every possible information.
Sure you gotta touch their feelings and, hell yeah, entertain them. But not by saying things that can be smashed back to your face.
If you do, you lose twice.

3) THE CAMPAIGN IS CRAP ON THE WEB

Dear Panda, we do understand that you spent a lot of money to bother Italians during their night shows telling them how cool they are and how they want this car because it’s a mirror where they can see the best part of their country. We truly do.
But maybe you just don’t know that people use web as an alternative to tv sets.
Maybe you don’t know that in order to succeed you have to entertain people also in the digital landscape. You didn’t know, did you?
Please don’t say yes. If you do you should explain to us the reason for this 

Attracting people on a website with a very cool and pixar-style cartoon is only cool if the interaction of the game you propose to them is something more than what you could better do on a Nintendo 64 more than 10 years ago.
This web tail of the boring campaign is even more boring.
Come on… “catch me if you can” means that I have a game where I must (wow!) find the words connected to the Panda and watch a pixelated giant-headed man running on the screen? You could do better Panda.

A 14 half blind apps developer could have done better. We’re sure.
Not to mention that in our century, dear Panda, you could have used social media web to interact with people… but we’ll tell you more once we get our ass on our DeLorean and travel back in time to the 80s. That is when you probably jotted down this project.
You should have just left in that drawer and asked someone from 2012 to think one for you.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

There’s no story, just glorification of italian people from a brand that produces its cars abroad and have planned to become more and more American in the future.
There’s no communication strategy for all the touchpoints that gets your message to people in 2012.

Epic fail.