And so, dear readers, we are heading to Italy for the final leg of this year’s Decision Marketing Creative Review Summer Sojourn, designed to showcase the latest marketing and advertising campaigns wooing our friends overseas.
With the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 making way for the new football season, online shopping giant eBay Italia is aiming to position itself as an enabler of “an infinite world of passions”.
Enter a new campaign created by agency Dude, entitled “Do Re Mi Fa Goal”, the second film in the “football passion” series, set in an Italian bar, starring former Italian players turned TV pundits Lele Adani and Nicola Vendola.
Accompanied by Supergrass’ Alright, the film opens on a bored barman, seemingly wondering how to liven up the place up on a non-football night. Then one customer hatches a grand plan to order a karaoke machine on eBay – of course – and once it has arrived it switches to him hamming his way through the Supergrass track.
But in the other corner of the bar, he spots a table football match, which looks like far more fun, and – according to the blurb at least – “realises that his passion for football is stronger, so he uses the microphone not to sing but to do the commentary of the match instead”.
One of the table football teams features Adani and Ventola, who end the commercial quoting some of their “famous catchphrases”.
The film will be airing on TV as well as live streaming platform DAZN and will be backed by social media activity, with the 30’’, 15’’ and 7’’ cuts, plus a dedicated media plan.
eBay Italia chief marketing officer Vito Pace said: “In this episode, we continue to celebrate the passions of our community. Daniele and Nicola are an integral part of our story, representing the spirit and diverse interests of our users, which we constantly nurture and showcase.”
So, what is the consensus around the Decision Marketing office?
Well, first up the ad is actually in English so we can at least understand what is going on. Mind you, “in English” is a relative term here as the voiceover sounds like it has been translated by AI. No emotion, no passion and not much sense either.
And, while the Italian version might work well (we haven’t seen it), this adaptation is more “back to the drawing board than “back of the net”. Still, who knows, the Italians might love it…
Decision Marketing Adometer: A “lost in translation” 6 out of 10
