Online Brand Protection

Is it possible to fully protect your brand or company name online? A good question and one which, unfortunately, we are having to address now. Without naming the tour company in question, our view is that assigning, to both the web page and the Italy itineraries section, the name of our 10 year old travel [...]

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Is Advertising Culturally Specific?

A litlte while ago now, I attended an International Media Management course in the UK aimed at exploring new ways of approaching media planning. One of the invited speakers was a creative director of a London based agency who invited us to view a series of ads which, according to him, represented good and bad [...]

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Disasterous Dubai

Italy has had its fair share of eco monsters, especially during the boom years of the 1950′s and 1960′s. Occasionally news breaks of another, such as the 15 million euro concrete flood barrier built along the shores of Como not so long ago. Fortunately, now being pulled down following public outcry. And as we write [...]

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McAsiago

The news that MacDonald’s Italia will be offering a limited range of products made from Italian regional DOP food products is interesting news. Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture has evidently sponsored the idea from the very start, apparently convincing the MacDonalds hierarchy. The Ministry has been clear [...]

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Sparkling wine in a square bottle

Vinitaly in April 2009 saw the official presentation of the most valuable wine bottle of the moment. Gold painted and square, the label reads Otello Dry² and is the first sparkling wine in a square bottle, The result is a partnership between Cantine Ceci of Parma and Rosato jewels (Mariella Burani Fashion Group) for the [...]

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The image of Greece and Croatia

All summer on our satellite television screen, we watched luscious commercial spots produced by the Greece and Croatia Tourism Boards. They were beautiful, enchanting and persuasive and created a wonderful image for both countries as a visitor destination. We were almost tempted to go ourselves! What was impressive was the emphasis on those aspects of [...]

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Sweet Merendine

A collective term for small sweet snacks produced in industrial quantities and typically wrapped in ubiquitous plastic. You can find out all about them at the site www.merendineitaliane.it All that plastic and all that sugar may give merendine a bad name, but the site highlights their nutritional value following research by F.O.S.A.N. (Fondazione per lo [...]

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Retro Italian Liqueur

Italian liqueurs or digestives such as limoncello and grappa have been produced for centuries, but have only been advertised fairly recently. Well, concerning that marvellous ‘bring it on’ artichoke concoction by Campari known as Cynar, for sure since 1975. The proof (no pun intended) was the 1975 Cup Winners Cup final between Dinamo Kiev, of [...]

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Grana Padano Cheese

A new Grana Padano Cheese television spot is about to hit our digital screens. The last one was iconic and ran from 2002. The ad featured a cheese knife slicing through grapes, honey, walnuts etc to land with a thud in a round of Grana Padano. Difficult to beat. View the commercial here The new [...]

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