Carlo Vinti

The Americanization of Italian advertising during the 1950s and the 1960s: Mediations, conflicts, and appropriations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the Americanization of European advertising in the post‐war years as a phenomenon of cultural transfer and it aims to explore the interaction between the USA and Italian advertising traditions during the 1950s and the 1960s.Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is in two parts. First, the role of those cross‐cultural mediators who contributed to changing marketing communication strategies of many Italian companies during the 1950s and the 1960s is studied. Second, the ways in which US advertising rules and patterns are combined with the local tradition in order to fit the Italian context of the post‐war years are looked at. The research is based on a study of the main USA and Italian marketing and advertising literature of the post‐war years, and on an analysis of press campaigns and TV commercials.Findings – This research shows that during the 1950s and the 1960s, the conflict between the American approach and the Italian approach to advertising did...

La publicité italienne et le modèle américain : Le débat entre artistes et techniciens (1948-1960)

- Cet article propose dexaminer la transformation des metiers de la publicite en Italie entre lapres-guerre et 1960 en sinterrogeant, en particulier, sur la confrontation entre, dune part, les methodes et les pratiques de ladvertising americain et, dautre part, les connaissances et les savoir-faire des publicitaires et, notamment, des graphistes italiens sinspirant de la pensee et de lesthetique modernistes. A travers lanalyse de multiples sources (presse specialisee, actes de congres des organisations professionnelles, « litterature grise », ouvrages monographiques), nous reconstruisons le debat qui a accompagne la diffusion en Italie des agences et des techniques publicitaires americaines. Lexamen de ces discussions, qui ont eu lieu dans une periode cruciale de lexpansion de lindustrie publicitaire en Italie, aide a mieux comprendre comment et pourquoi certaines pratiques de ladvertising americain ont ete acceptees, dautres rejetees et dautres encore integrees dans la tradition existante, et comment et pourquoi certaines dentre elles ont engendre des solutions tout a fait nouvelles et originales.