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Berlusconi Pushes Italian Staycations, Gets YouTube Backlash Instead

Where: Italy
July 13, 2010 at 3:09 PM | by | Comments (0)

The only silver lining around Silvio Berlusconi's recent tourism ad, where he tried to cajole Italians into vacationing domestically rather than traveling abroad, is that he didn't actually use the word "staycation." That obviously would have been beyond the pale. Regardless, this commercial, where the Prime Minister intones about "Magic Italy" as the camera pans over the country's most famous landmarks, has already become a public relations fiasco for the government.

Rather than inspiring locals to embrace Italy's beauty and heritage, the commercial has triggered a wave of sarcastic YouTube knockoffs. The spoofs take the ad's soaring audio track and juxtapose it with images of roiling national turmoil. Instead of the Sistine Chapel, you get pictures of rioters; instead of fountains, crumbling buildings; and instead of coastlines, picture after picture of garbage left uncollected in the streets. That's what happens when you make a personal, emotion-packed appeal to a nation where 59% of the people think that you're too corrupt and/or incompetent to govern well. Oops!

Not to stray too far away from the topic, but let this be your reminder that in a world of new media, advertisers simply can't control their brand like they used to. It's not just that opponents can take your content and reverse it, although that's obviously a problem. It's that they can take your content, reverse it, and spread it until it's much more popular than the original production.

Anyway, we've embedded the original spot below followed by two of the spoofs. The middle video highlights Italy's civil unrest, while the last one hones in on Berlusconi's personal scandals. Let's also go ahead and slap a mild content warning on both, on account of mild violence and a couple of gratuitous thong shots.

Related Stories:
· Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy Tourism Ad — and its Spoofs — Become Popular [WSJ]
· Tourism Advertising [Jaunted]
· Travel Ads [Jaunted]

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