Adland by Mark Tungate

Author:Mark Tungate
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kogan Page

09

European icons

‘The product is the same – the difference is the communications’

Every Christmas, without fail, a parcel the size and shape of a hatbox appears on my doorstep. Inside, entirely made of chocolate, are the intertwined letters A and T. It’s the logo of Armando Testa, Italy’s leading creative agency, in candy form. The parcel is a souvenir of the first visit I made to the agency no fewer than seven years ago. I’ve been back a few times since – but if I had never darkened Testa’s door again, I doubt it would have made much difference. All cynicism aside, this seems a little warmer than the average PR gesture. I wrote a positive article once, so I’ve been adopted.

Maybe the fact that we’re in Italy encourages metaphors concerning the family. And Testa is all about family. Armando Testa, a Turin-based graphic designer, founded the agency in 1946. He died in 1992, but by then the agency had been taken to even greater heights by his son, Marco, who took over as managing director in 1985. The agency remains stubbornly independent, refusing to be snapped up by an American leviathan.

Contributing to the familial atmosphere is the fact that, to a certain extent, Testa is the Italian Leo Burnett. The agency handles household names like Pirelli, Lavazza, San Pellegrino and Fiat-Lancia. And it has created much-loved characters like Pippo, a friendly blue hippopotamus, for a brand of diapers, and the immortal Caballero and Carmencita, two cone-shaped cartoon characters brought to life for Café Paulista in the 1960s and still going strong.

But there is another, hipper side to Armando Testa. It has a strong graphic design heritage and its print work, particularly, has an undeniable punch. Consider the groovy posters it creates every year for Lavazza coffee: ultra-glam confections shot by photographers such as David LaChapelle, Jean-Baptiste Mondino and Ellen Von Unwerth. Outdoor advertising is often dismissed as visual pollution – but these babies actually brighten up a cityscape. The spin-off calendars wrench a vivid hole in your wall. Armando Testa would have approved, as his greatest goal in life was to make an impact.

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