It is well known that Italians can turn a national tragedy into laughter. Indeed, the humiliating elimination of the national team from the FIFA world cup, last Tuesday, was gleefully lampooned by advertising strategists of 2 famous Italian brands.
Eataly, a food emporium with outlets both in Italy and abroad, has placed a full page advertisement in Friday’s newspapers featuring the New York Post story about the Suarez biting incident with the headline “Tutti vogliono mangiare italiano!” (i.e. “Everybody wants to eat Italian!”).
The famous pasta company Barilla, has come up with two simple but effective ads: one says “Ci hanno cotti in 90 minuti” (i.e. “They cooked us in 90 minutes” – the length of a soccer game); the other ad shows 11 pieces of tubular pasta – representing the 11 players – and the words “Bentornati a casa” (i.e.”Welcome home”). One of the pasta tubes has a chunk chomped out of it.
We, Italians, manage to get over our hardships by laughing – and being proud of our sense of humour…
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